11952 
8958Business model innovation（BMI）is becoming the important carrier of corporate transformation and upgrading, and its theme design as the value source of corporate sustainable competitive advantage has attracted much attention in recent years. Being embedded in a particular social situation and institution environment, BMI theme design is a product of contextualization. However, most researchers don’t have sufficient understanding for start-ups’ BMI institutional context. BMI under China’s transitional economy is much different from that one under western situation, China has become ‘a legitimate and viable context for management and organization reasearch’. Widespread ‘institution vacuum’ and ‘institution defect’ in transitional context have sharpened antecedents of business model design, have triggered a responsive motivation and creative challenge, and have provided theme design space with pioneering BMI and perfecting BMI. Therefore, it is very necessary to design the theme of BMI in China’s context and incorporate its operation to make measurement more meaningful and effective. In conformity with the research logic of theme business model design, based on China’s unique context, and focusing on how China’s start-ups change trading institution through BMI, this paper firstly excavates the trading and the institution attributes of business model, analyzes the influence of China’s transitional context on start-ups’ BMI, and refines out the theme design connotation of pioneering and perfecting BMI. Then, according to the development logic of measurement scale, by the use of combined approach, this paper initializes the scale of pioneering and perfecting BMI. Finally, by virtue of two sets of independent sample data respectively, we conduct EFA and CFA quantitative research to purify and validate the scale. Empirical analysis results show that BMI in transitional context is composed of 2 theme dimensions and 16 items, thus confirming our pioneering and perfecting BMI theoretic framework and developing a corresponding scale with a favorable reliability and validity, which is better to explain start-ups’ BMI behavior in the context of China’s transitional economy. The pioneering and perfecting BMI theme design which respectively acts on ‘institution vacuum’ and ‘institution defects’, frames not only the design elements of business model, but also conveys organization meaning, beliefs and values. This paper makes up for the lack of BMI contextualization in the answer of how China’s start-ups actively change incumbent institution, brings out the operative definition of pioneering and perfecting theme design, and makes theoretical contribution to the literature of BMI and corporate strategy. Moreover, the flexible use of pioneering and perfecting BMI, the equal attention to transaction innovation and organizational legitimacy, and the diagnostic tool function of theme scale all provide practical implications for start-ups’ business model innovative catching-up.
/ Journals / Foreign Economics & Management
Foreign Economics & Management
LiZengquan, Editor-in-Chief
ZhengChunrong, Vice Executive Editor-in-Chief
YinHuifang HeXiaogang LiuJianguo, Vice Editor-in-Chief
Business Model Innovation in the Context of China’s Transitional Economy: Theme Design and Scale Development
Foreign Economics & Management Vol. 40, Issue 01, pp. 33 - 49 (2018) DOI:10.16538/j.cnki.fem.2018.01.003
Summary
References
Summary
[1]Amit R, Zott C. Value creation in E-business[J]. Strategic Management Journal, 2001,22(6/7): 493-520.
[2]AsparaJ. Business model innovation vs replication:Financial performance implications of strategic emphases[J].Journal of Strategic Marketing, 2010, 18(1): 39-56.
[3]Battistella C, Biotto G, De Toni A F. From design driven innovation to meaning strategy[J]. Management Decision, 2012, 50(4): 718-743.
[4]Casadesus-Masanell R, Ricart J E. How to design a winning business model[J]. Harvard Business Review, 2011, 89(1/2): 101-107.
[5]Cavalcante S. Preparing for business model change: The “prestage” finding[J]. Journal of Management &Governance, 2014,18(4):449-469.
[6]Chesbrough H, Rosenbloom RS. The role of the businessmodel in capturing value from innovation: Evidencefrom Xerox Corpora-tion’s technology spin-off companies[J].Industrial and Corporate Change, 2002, 11(3): 529-555.
[7]Christensen CM. The ongoing process of building atheory of disruption. Journal of Product Innovation Management, 2006, 23(4): 39-55.
[8]Churchill G. A paradigm for developing better measures of marketing constructs[J]. Journal of Marketing Research, 1979,(1): 147-159.
[9]CovinJG,Slevin DP,Covin TJ. Content and performance of growth-seeking strategies:a comparison of small firms in high-and-low technology industries[J]. Journal of Business Venturing, 1990,5(6),391-412.
[10]Demil B, Lecocq X. Business model evolution:In search of dynamic consistency[J].Long Range Planning, 2010, 43(2/3): 227-246.
[11]DiMaggioP J, Powell W W. The iron cage revisited：Institutional isomorphism and collective rationality in organizational fields[J].American Sociological Review, 1983,48(2):147-160.
[12]Doz Y L, Kosonen M. Embedding strategic agility: A leadership agenda for accelerating business modelrenewal[J].Long Range Planning, 2010, 43(4): 370-382.
[13]Droege S, Johnson N B. Broken rules and constrained confusion: Toward a theory of meso-institutions[J]. Management and organization Review, 2007, 4(1): 81-104.
[14]Fornell C,Larcker D F. Evaluating structural equation models with observable variables and measurement error[J]. Journal of Marketing Research, 1981, 18(1): 39-50.
[15]Foss N J, Saebi T. Fifteen years of research on business model innovation: How far have we come, and where should we go?[J].Journal of Management, 2017, 43(1): 200-227.
[16]Hargadon A B, Douglas Y. When innovations meet institutions：Edison and the design of the electric light[J]. Administrative Science Quarterly, 2001, 46(3): 476–501.
[17]Haunschild P R, Miner A S. Modes of interorganizational imitation: The effects of outcome salience and uncertainty[J]. Administrative Science Quarterly, 1997, 42(3): 472-500.
[18]He Z L, Wong P K. Exploration vs. exploitation: An empirical test of the ambidexterity hypothesis.Organization Science, 2004,15(4): 481-494.
[19]Jia L, You S, Du Y.Chinese context andtheoretical contributions to management and organizationresearch: A three-decade review[J]. Managementand Organization Review, 2012, 8(1): 173-209.
[20]Li Y, Guo H, Liu Y. Incentive mechanisms, entrepreneurial orientation and technology commercialization: Evidence from China's transitional economy[J]. Journal of Product Innovation Management, 2008, 25(1): 63-78.
[21]Liebermann M B, Montgomery D B. First-mover advantages[J]. Strategic Management Journal, 1988, 9(S1): 36--56.
[22]LumpkinT, DessG. Clarifying the entrepreneurial orientation construct and linking it to performance[J]. Academy ofManagement Review, 1996, 21(1): 135-172．
[23]Meyer J W, Scott W R. Organizational environments: Ritual and rationality[M]. Beverly Hills, CA:Sage, 1983.
[24]Morris M, Schindehutte M, Allen J.The entrepreneur’s business model: Toward a unified perspective[J]. Journal of Business Research, 2005, 58(6): 726-735.
[25]Narver J C, Slater S F, Maclachlan D L. Responsive and proactive market orientation and new-product success[J].Journal of Product Innovation Management, 2004, 21(5): 334－347．
[26]Osiyevskyy O, Dewald J. Explorative versus exploitative business model change: The cognitive antecedents of firm-level responses to disruptive innovation[J]. Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal, 2015, 9(1): 58-78.
[27]Peng M W.Institutional transitions and strategic choices[J]. Academy of Management Review, 2003, 28(2): 275-296.
[28]ScottW R. Approaching adulthood: The maturing of institutional theory[J]. Theory and Society, 2008, 37(6): 427-442.
[29]Snihur Y,Zott C. Towards an institutional perspectiveon business model innovation: How entrepreneurs achieverobust business model design[R]. Working paper, IESE BusinessSchool, Barcelona, Spain. 2015.
[30]SubramaniamM,Youndt M A. The influence of intellectual capital on the types of innovative capabilities. Academy of Mangement Journal, 2005, 48(3), 450-463.
[31]Suchman M C. Managing legitimacy: Strategic and institutional approaches[J]. Academy of Management Review, 1995, 20(3):571-610.
[32]TeeceD J. Business models, business strategy and innovation[J]. Long Range Planning, 2010, 43(7): 172-194.
[33]Tsui A. Contextualization in Chinese management review[J]. Management and Organization Review, 2006, 2(1):1-13.
[34]Wei Z, Yang D, Sun B,Gu M. The fit between technological innovation and business model design forfirm growth: Evidence from China. R&D Management, 2014, 44(8): 288-305.
[35]ZimmermanM, ZeitzG. Beyond survival: Achieving new venture growth by building legitimacy[J]. Academy of Management Review, 2002, 27(3): 414-431.
[36]Zott C, Amit R,Businessmodel design and the performance of entrepreneurial firms[J]. Organization Science, 2007,18(2): 181-199.
[37]Zott C, Amit R. The fit between product market strategy and business model: Implications for firm performance[J]. Strategic Management Journal, 2008, 29(1): 1-26.
[38]Zott C, Amit R. Business model design: An activity system perspective[J]. Long Range Planning, 2010, 43(6): 216-226.
Cite this article
Luo Xingwu, Liu Yang, Xiang Guopeng, et al. Business Model Innovation in the Context of China’s Transitional Economy: Theme Design and Scale Development[J]. Foreign Economics & Management, 2018, 40(1): 33–49.
Export Citations as:
For
