Browsing by Author "Bohnsack, René"
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- Driving the electric bandwagon: the dynamics of incumbents' sustainable innovationPublication . Bohnsack, René; Kolk, Ans; Pinkse, Jonatan; Bidmon, Christina M.Given that entire industries face sustainability challenges, it is important to understand the dynamics that lead “firms-in-an-industry” to engage in sustainable product innovation. To provide more insight into the question of how innovation activities spread from individual firm action to an industry-wide engagement, this paper examines the automobile industry and the development of electric vehicles (EVs). The analysis covers automobile incumbents over a crucial decade for EV development in the industry, focusing on the different strategic motives that especially the so-called “first movers” used to justify their earlier engagement. We find that EVs became a core pillar of the incumbents' technology strategies through a combination of coercive, normative, and mimetic pressures. Yet, the strategic motives to engage in EVs stayed poles apart between different companies. The insights from our study are relevant for those interested in the diffusion of sustainable product innovation and in incumbent behaviour in sustainability transitions.
- Entrepreneurial orientation and its effect on sustainability decision tradeoffs: the case of sustainable fashion firmsPublication . DiVito, Lori; Bohnsack, RenéWe examined the entrepreneurial orientation and sustainability orientation, a persistent and conflicting duality, of sustainable entrepreneurs and their evaluation of competing priorities in sustainability decision making. We conducted an exploratory, mixed-method study of 24 sustainable fashion firms and collected data through structured surveys and rich in-depth interviews. Through our inductive and deductive analysis, we derive three sustainability decision making profiles (singular, flexible and holistic) with distinct prioritization logic (nested, ordered and aligned, respectively). We find different configurations of entrepreneurial orientation correspond to the sustainability decision making profiles. We extend the literature by showing how the reflexivity of entrepreneurial orientation interacts with sustainability orientation.
- Generative AI for growth hacking: how startups use generative AI in their growth strategiesPublication . Rezazadeh, Arash; Kohns, Marco; Bohnsack, René; António, Nuno; Rita, PauloThis study explores how startups and scaleups in Europe and the US use generative AI in their go-to-market strategies across product-led, sales-led, and operational efficiency-driven growth. Through interviews with 20 cases spanning pre-seed to Series E funding stages, we 1) analyze generative AI's role in growth strategies, 2) identify large language model use cases for tackling growth challenges such as customer churn, and 3) develop a framework for AI capabilities that guides managers in building, refining, and reflecting on their knowledge of using generative AI for growth hacking. Key findings include the implications of generative AI for technical and non-technical content creation in product-led growth, promotional content creation and repurposing, and customer experience personalization in sales-led growth, and market research, market entry strategies, and customer engagement in operational efficiency-driven growth. Findings empower managers to develop effective generative AI-driven growth hacking strategies while proactively managing unintended organizational, competitive, and societal consequences.
- Profiting from innovation when digital business ecosystems emerge: a control point perspectivePublication . Bohnsack, René; Rennings, Michael; Block, Carolin; Bröring, StefanieThe digital transformation of industrial-age sectors changes product architectures and industry architectures, influencing how value is created and captured in emerging digital business ecosystems. In the industrial era, products were designed around modular architectures and complementary assets, and bottlenecks determined who profits from innovation. In the digital era, products emerge on a layered modular architecture, and profiting from innovation is shifting to those who own control points. Despite the centrality of the interplay between the product architecture and industry architecture for value creation and value capture in the digital age, the effects on competitiveness and industry dynamics remain unclear. To fill this void, we draw on the concept of control points, a novel lens to reflect bargaining positions on a layered modular architecture in digital business ecosystems. Based on a case study of 19 companies, industry associations, and consulting firms in the digital business ecosystem of smart farming, we identify strategic control points, technical control points, generic control points, and institutional boundaries as instrumental in determining value creation and value capture positions. We find that actors (i.e., incumbents, diversifying entrants, and new entrants) in emerging digital business ecosystems follow a seesaw pattern in setting control points and acquiring bargaining positions, and propose a framework that allows to analyze the dynamics within digital business ecosystems. Our study offers managerial implications for firms seeking to optimize their ecosystem strategy and policy makers to support the effective development of the institutional context.
- Re-examining path dependence in the digital age: the evolution of connected car business modelsPublication . Bohnsack, René; Kurtz, Hannes; Hanelt, AndréProliferating digitalization affects the evolution of business models across contexts and challenges firms’ established innovation trajectories. Prior work on organizational path dependence suggests that firms experience decreasing option spaces over time and ultimately arrive at lock-in situations that prevent them from reacting to changing environmental conditions. Contemporary business practice, however, challenges these assumptions, as firms—even industrial-age incumbents—appear to be able to escape lock-ins and restore choices. One potential explanation for this could be the flexible nature of digital technologies that are increasingly integrated into business models during digitalization. To explore how and why this process affects organizational path dependence, we conducted a longitudinal multiple case study on connected car business models. We derive four business model archetypes adopted by different companies in the automotive industry and by new entrants, and we describe their evolution over time. We find that the growing integration of digital technologies into business models increases the number of possible pathways and can help to break path-dependent behavior. Based on our findings, we challenge and extend established knowledge on organizational path dependence with regard to key tenets, such as initial conditions and lock-ins, and provide a nuanced perspective on path dependence's resource- and cognition-based foundations.
- Sustainable product innovation and changing consumer behavior: sustainability affordances as triggers of adoption and usagePublication . Pinkse, Jonatan; Bohnsack, RenéThis conceptual paper argues that for sustainable product innovation to make a contribution to addressing sustainability issues, we need to understand not only why consumers adopt sustainable products but also what makes them use these in sustainable way. To explain how specific product features can change the ways in which consumers engage with sustainable products in the adoption and usage phase, we draw on affordance theory. Affordances refer to the potential for agentic action of users in relation to a technological object. We develop a conceptual framework that explains how sustainable product innovation can lead to the design of sustainability affordances that stimulate adoption and sustainable usage. The framework shows how three forms of agency—material, firm, and user agency—interact and together influence a product's sustainability affordances that drive adoption and a change in consumer behavior. The framework explains how trade-offs between a product's environmental features and consumer expectations regarding desired functionalities and user experience can be overcome.
- A systematic review of the literature on digital transformation: insights and implications for strategy and organizational changePublication . Hanelt, André; Bohnsack, René; Marz, David; Marante, Cláudia AntunesIn this article we provide a systematic review of the extensive yet diverse and fragmented literature on digital transformation (DT), with the goal of clarifying boundary conditions to investigate the phenomenon from the perspective of organizational change. On the basis of 279 articles, we provide a multi-dimensional framework synthesizing what is known about DT and discern two important thematical patterns: DT is moving firms to malleable organizational designs that enable continuous adaptation, and this move is embedded in and driven by digital business ecosystems. From these two patterns, we derive four perspectives on the phenomenon of DT: technology impact, compartmentalized adaptation, systemic shift and holistic co-evolution. Linking our findings and interpretations to existing work, we find that the nature of DT is only partially covered by conventional frameworks on organizational change. On the basis of this analysis, we derive a research agenda and provide managerial implications for strategy and organizational change.
- The role of business models in firm internationalization: an exploration of European electricity firms in the context of the energy transitionPublication . Bohnsack, René; Ciulli, Francesca; Kolk, AnsThis article ties in directly with recently intensified interest in business models in international business (IB), using the energy transition as empirical context to explore their relevance in firm internationalization. The global energy transition presents a challenge for almost all industries, but some face specific difficulties particularly important from an IB perspective. We study a set of European firms that used to operate in a highly regulated context with (partial) state ownership, until government-directed market liberalization started to allow further competition and internationalization. Existing firms were prompted to adapt their business models to these changes, with new ventures entering the market to reap opportunities with novel energy-related technologies and business models. Linking insights from strategic management to the IB literature, we conceptualize business model-related specific advantages (BMSAs), and explore the role of BMSAs in the internationalization of the firms in our sample. We also uncover barriers to BMSA recombination in (potential) host countries, consider BMSA location-boundedness, and discuss implications for firms’ international expansion by presenting a new framework. Consequences for the energy transition and the actors already involved and (in)directly confronted with it are explicated, while outlining promising areas for further research, building on the insights and limitations of our study.
- Value creation and value capture in NFT business models: insights from blockchain-based venturesPublication . Rezazadeh, Arash; Bohnsack, RenéThis paper sets out to explore how blockchain-based technologies, particularly non-fungible tokens (NFTs), are influencing future business models. Drawing on the relevant literature and a multiple case study of blockchain ventures, we demonstrate how the technology leads to new polyadic mechanisms of value creation and value capture. A clarification of NFTs and related concepts, together with their use values and exchange value determinants, led us to argue that the polyadic mechanisms differ from those in dyadic and triadic business models. Overall, we identify a total of 39 NFT technology affordances that fall into four types: utility, social, financial, and legal affordances. In addition, the NFT business ecosystem is mapped in terms of sources of generativity, mixed-side network effects, and the convergence of complementors within the ecosystem. Finally, this study explores three distinct mechanisms of stakeholder collaboration using NFTs: token distribution and fundraising, polyadic value creation and capture, and smart contract-enabled facilitation of stakeholder interactions. Based on the insights, we discuss the impact of NFTs and blockchain technology on society (illustrated by two cases of NFT ticketing and decentralized apps), and the implications for theory, practice, and policy.
- Value propositions for disruptive technologies: reconfiguration tactics in the case of electric vehiclesPublication . Bohnsack, René; Pinkse, JonatanDisruptive technologies tend to underperform on attributes that are considered as key attributes of incumbent technologies and require new value propositions to increase mainstream customer appeal. Yet, how do firms reconfigure their value proposition as a way to overcome the technological inferiority of disruptive technologies? This article conceptualizes and empirically investigates the process of value proposition reconfiguration. Based on evidence on the commercialization of electric vehicles, it explores the tactics firms use to reconfigure value propositions to increase market acceptance from mainstream customers. The article develops a framework showing three reconfiguration tactics: compensating, enhancing, and coupling tactics.