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Digital disruption of the Value Creation Ecosystem - how new business models emerge

Digital disruption of the Value Creation Ecosystem - how new business models emerge
Digital disruption of the Value Creation Ecosystem - how new business models emerge
Objectives
In this paper, we present the literature which conceives business models as a systemic, multifaceted phenomenon. This resonates with the explosion of creativity around entrepreneurship and innovation in the Digital Economy. There are many unanswered questions about early stage concept development at the ‘fuzzy front end’ of new technology development, where business models are considered and formed. Thus, we present an ‘emergence’ perspective, which brings a useful methodological conceptualisation to the picture that recognises the systemic context discussed above, while taking account of the key role of entrepreneurial agency in innovation overall.

Prior Work
We have extended our earlier work in a case study of an e-commerce model to highlight the potential contribution of the notion of emergence to this debate.

Approach
In theorizing emergence as a transition from ephemerality to stability, recognizing entrepreneurial agency and social context, we foreground the notion of business models as emergent, structural entities that may or may not persist over time as the surrounding context evolves, but which are nonetheless causal – attracting resources and organizational energy – at least for a time. From our earlier work, we have demonstrated that it is possible to identify and characterise ephemeral emergents providing we recognise that they are shifting discursive constructs that have different meanings to different stakeholders at different times. Thus although characterized as ‘one’ emergent business model, AAC had many associated, temporary properties, that were continuously shaped, re-shaped and strengthened.

Results
From a methodological point of view, our paper firstly, focusses the gaze onto particular constructs and activities at the time business model development is being carried out. The approach enables researchers to concentrate on the processes, interplays, choices and decisions that entrepreneurs enact in small firms in regard to the full panoply of potential innovations they consider. More typically research tends to focus, post-hoc, on successes (usually) or failures (occasionally). Secondly, we intrinsically operate at multiple levels of analysis, rather than reifying any one layer of analysis as the most significant (though of course, the focus on entrepreneurial engagement is the starting point).

Implications
Through Sawyer (after both Archer (1995) and Bhaskar (1975) an emergentist approach relates stratified approaches to ontology, thus enabling the dynamics of interplay between entrepreneurial agency and social change to be explored.

Value
From a practical point of view, entrepreneurs can learn how to organise for the emergence processes: for example, fostering a culture where low-level experimentation is encouraged. Studies of how entrepreneurial managers can observe, evaluate emergent business models in their practices would be of value therefore. Improvements in the practical management of emergents requires us to know more about the dynamics of how emergent complexes interact and also the normative aspects of ‘optimising’ strategies to address the “exploration vs exploitation” problem , (how many are desirable, economies of scale, when to persist and when not to.
business model, emergence, value creation, digital economy, ecosystem
Warren, Lorraine
1ec8193d-f90f-48f6-9205-041dcf89121d
Warren, Lorraine
1ec8193d-f90f-48f6-9205-041dcf89121d

Warren, Lorraine (2013) Digital disruption of the Value Creation Ecosystem - how new business models emerge. ISBE 2013, Cardiff, United Kingdom. 12 - 13 Nov 2013. 12 pp .

Record type: Conference or Workshop Item (Paper)

Abstract

Objectives
In this paper, we present the literature which conceives business models as a systemic, multifaceted phenomenon. This resonates with the explosion of creativity around entrepreneurship and innovation in the Digital Economy. There are many unanswered questions about early stage concept development at the ‘fuzzy front end’ of new technology development, where business models are considered and formed. Thus, we present an ‘emergence’ perspective, which brings a useful methodological conceptualisation to the picture that recognises the systemic context discussed above, while taking account of the key role of entrepreneurial agency in innovation overall.

Prior Work
We have extended our earlier work in a case study of an e-commerce model to highlight the potential contribution of the notion of emergence to this debate.

Approach
In theorizing emergence as a transition from ephemerality to stability, recognizing entrepreneurial agency and social context, we foreground the notion of business models as emergent, structural entities that may or may not persist over time as the surrounding context evolves, but which are nonetheless causal – attracting resources and organizational energy – at least for a time. From our earlier work, we have demonstrated that it is possible to identify and characterise ephemeral emergents providing we recognise that they are shifting discursive constructs that have different meanings to different stakeholders at different times. Thus although characterized as ‘one’ emergent business model, AAC had many associated, temporary properties, that were continuously shaped, re-shaped and strengthened.

Results
From a methodological point of view, our paper firstly, focusses the gaze onto particular constructs and activities at the time business model development is being carried out. The approach enables researchers to concentrate on the processes, interplays, choices and decisions that entrepreneurs enact in small firms in regard to the full panoply of potential innovations they consider. More typically research tends to focus, post-hoc, on successes (usually) or failures (occasionally). Secondly, we intrinsically operate at multiple levels of analysis, rather than reifying any one layer of analysis as the most significant (though of course, the focus on entrepreneurial engagement is the starting point).

Implications
Through Sawyer (after both Archer (1995) and Bhaskar (1975) an emergentist approach relates stratified approaches to ontology, thus enabling the dynamics of interplay between entrepreneurial agency and social change to be explored.

Value
From a practical point of view, entrepreneurs can learn how to organise for the emergence processes: for example, fostering a culture where low-level experimentation is encouraged. Studies of how entrepreneurial managers can observe, evaluate emergent business models in their practices would be of value therefore. Improvements in the practical management of emergents requires us to know more about the dynamics of how emergent complexes interact and also the normative aspects of ‘optimising’ strategies to address the “exploration vs exploitation” problem , (how many are desirable, economies of scale, when to persist and when not to.

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More information

Published date: November 2013
Venue - Dates: ISBE 2013, Cardiff, United Kingdom, 2013-11-12 - 2013-11-13
Keywords: business model, emergence, value creation, digital economy, ecosystem
Organisations: Strategy, Innovation & Entrepreneurship

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 360829
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/360829
PURE UUID: 4139b4b5-acd7-47d1-972d-1e388699cae5

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Date deposited: 07 Jan 2014 15:26
Last modified: 14 Mar 2024 15:42

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Contributors

Author: Lorraine Warren

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