Title: Business model innovation in the aviation industry

Authors: Sabrina Schneider; Patrick Spieth; Thomas Clauss

Addresses: Department of Innovation Management & Entrepreneurship, EBS Business School, Rheingaustr 1, 65375 Oestrich-Winkel, Germany ' Department of Innovation Management & Entrepreneurship, EBS Business School, Rheingaustr 1, 65375 Oestrich-Winkel, Germany; Department of Innovation & Technology Management, University of Kassel, Nora-Platiel-Str. 4, 34109 Kassel, Germany ' Department of Corporate Management and Innovative Value Creation, University of Marburg, Am Plan 1-2, 35032 Marburg, Germany

Abstract: In response to changing sources of value creation, business model innovation has recently emerged as a concept that allows dealing with volatile environments. Focusing on the aviation industry, we aim at enhancing the understanding of drivers, elements and forms of business model innovation. We use an inductive, theory-building design that allows patterns of business model innovation to come to light across multiple case studies of Maintenance, Repair and Overhaul (MRO) companies in the aviation industry. In line with prior theory, we find that a range of supply and demand-driven effects trigger the need for business model innovation in the aviation sector. We identify aircraft manufacturer market characteristics and structural airline industry characteristics as drivers of MRO business model innovation. New MRO value offerings and MRO value creation were set as constituting elements of innovating MRO business models resulting in customer benefit-oriented and value co-creation-oriented business model innovation.

Keywords: business model innovation; business models; aviation industry; MRO; maintenance; repair; overhaul; value co-creation; customer benefit-orientation; case study research; value creation; aircraft manufacturing; market characteristics; airline industry; industry structural characteristics.

DOI: 10.1504/IJPD.2013.055010

International Journal of Product Development, 2013 Vol.18 No.3/4, pp.286 - 310

Received: 20 Jul 2011
Accepted: 05 Oct 2012
Published online: 30 Sep 2014 *

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