Title: Internal antecedents for systematic business model innovation: insights from the German automotive manufacturers

Authors: Benedict Seiferlein; Dominik K. Kanbach; Claudia Lehmann

Addresses: Dr. Ing. h.c. F. Porsche AG Chair of Strategic Management and Digital Entrepreneurship, HHL Leipzig Graduate School of Management, Jahnallee 59, 04109 Leipzig, Germany ' Dr. Ing. h.c. F. Porsche AG Chair of Strategic Management and Digital Entrepreneurship, HHL Leipzig Graduate School of Management, Jahnallee 59, 04109 Leipzig, Germany ' Center for Leading Innovation and Cooperation (CLIC), HHL Leipzig Graduate School of Management, Jahnallee 59, 04109 Leipzig, Germany

Abstract: Despite considerable interest from academics and management professionals in creating sustainable, competitive advantages through business model innovation (BMI), and highly-prominent BMI success stories, the contemporary understanding of how company-internal antecedents can enable systematic BMI remains limited. However, this specific knowledge is necessary if companies are to repeatedly exploit BMI's strategic and financial benefits. Therefore, this paper aims to reveal the internal antecedents by applying an in-depth qualitative research approach to the systematic BMI of all five German automotive manufacturers. The results show that systematic BMI is enabled through: 1) unified orientation; 2) dynamic orchestration; 3) flexible operations; 4) adjacent fields, which are underpinned by 16 distinct second-order themes. These findings significantly enhance the theoretical and managerial understanding of the enabling factors for BMI, and contribute unique empirical insights to the ongoing academic debate - particularly from the perspectives of dynamic capabilities and strategic agility.

Keywords: business model innovation; enabling factors; support conditions; German automotive industry; internal antecedents; qualitative research; unified orientation; dynamic orchestration; flexible operations; adjacent fields.

DOI: 10.1504/IJEIM.2023.129333

International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Innovation Management, 2023 Vol.27 No.1/2, pp.19 - 50

Accepted: 26 Oct 2022
Published online: 06 Mar 2023 *