Business model innovation (BMI) in incumbent firms is an important yet challenging task. Although there is increasing interest in developing and implementing BMI, not much is known about failed BMI, i.e. cases in which ideas or even the development of new business models have fallen through. Considering learning from failure to be most suitable for research on BMI, we address this gap by adding conceptual and empirical evidence to previous work on drivers influencing the success of BMI. Using an explorative multiple case study approach, we examine why BMIs have failed in established firms. First, we identify 99 drivers from BMI literature concerning success or failure of BMI, herewith deriving conceptual assumptions for BMI failure. Second, we identify seven cases of unsuccessful BMIs. Finally, we conduct an explorative case study using data from three cross-industry cases of unsuccessful BMIs, including ten in-depth interviews and a vast amount of secondary data. We empirically confirm most of our conceptual assumptions. Moreover, we identify further aspects not considered before. Overall, our findings show that drivers of success and failure of BMI in incumbent firms can be divided into two dimensions: factual and social failure.
展开▼
