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How should successful business models be configured? Results from an empirical study in business-to-business markets and implications for the change of business models

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Abstract

At the present moment there are no results that have been established on a wider empirical basis on how successful business models should be configured. On the conceptual level, the authors further develop the Business Model Canvas of Osterwalder and Pigneur (Business Model Generation: Ein Handbuch für Visionäre, Spielveränderer und Herausforderer. Campus, Frankfurt am Main, 2011) against the backdrop of a well-founded and practice-oriented understanding of the business model concept. On the empirical level, which is based on the revised Business Model Canvas, the paper examines the relationship between business model configurations and corporate success, using companies in business-to-business markets as examples. The identification of successful business models rests upon the Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA), which can model complex causalities. The results show that there are 14 business model configurations that represent sufficient conditions for the success of a company in terms of sales profitability. Six of these configurations can be interpreted as key paths to corporate success and reflect the value disciplines of Treacy and Wiersema (Harv Bus Rev 71(1):84–93, 1993). Consequences regarding the change of business models can be derived from the empirical results.

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Notes

  1. As explained in Sect. 4.1.4, the number of cases behind each configuration is irrelevant to the Boolean minimization process. Therefore the varying number of cases in Table 6 cannot distort the QCA results.

  2. The fact that the sample includes more companies with an above-average sales profitability than companies with an average or below-average sales profitability does not imply biased results, since according to the aim of the study, the csQCA is used exclusively to explain the outcome of an above-average sales profitability.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institut für Handel, Absatz und Marketing, Abteilung Business-to-Business-Marketing, Johannes Kepler Universität Linz, Altenberger Straße 69, 4040, Linz, Austria

    Thomas Werani, Bernhard Freiseisen & Alexander Schauberger

  2. Kuchinka & Partner GmbH, Jaxstraße 2-4, 4020, Linz, Austria

    Petra Martinek-Kuchinka

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  1. Thomas Werani
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  2. Bernhard Freiseisen
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  3. Petra Martinek-Kuchinka
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  4. Alexander Schauberger
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Correspondence to Thomas Werani.

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Werani, T., Freiseisen, B., Martinek-Kuchinka, P. et al. How should successful business models be configured? Results from an empirical study in business-to-business markets and implications for the change of business models. J Bus Econ 86, 579–609 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11573-015-0795-z

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