Configurations of Business Model Innovation: Unpacking the Practice Adopted by Firms in an Emerging Market Context

Abstract

Building on the strategy-as-practice perspective, this exploratory study addresses an overlooked line of inquiry into the forms, differentiators, and performance differences of micro-activities underpinning business model innovation (BMI) in an emerging market in the backdrop of dominating studies on conceptualisations, descriptions, antecedents, and preconditions to BMI. Cluster analysis of 127 managerial-level employees’ responses gathered through a survey uncovered three forms of micro-activities underpinning BMI unique to the firms’ economic activity: finance-driven, offer and customer-driven, and multiple-epicentre-driven. The common focus on customer relationships element across the clusters confirmed the uniqueness of the BMI approach in an emerging market. One-way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) confirmed the performance differences among the clusters. The interdependency of BMI dimensions and the approaches to aligning BMI dimensions are proposed for future research.