This paper aims to clarify the concept of business models, its usages, and its roles in the Information Systems domain. A review of the literature shows a broad diversity of understandings, usages, and places in the firm. The paper identifies the terminology or ontology used to describe a business model, and compares this terminology with previous work. Then the general usages, roles and potential of the concept are outlined. Finally, the connection between the business model concept and Information Systems is described in the form of eight propositions to be analyzed in future work.

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Increasingly, technological innovation creates markets for new products and services. To survive, firms must respond to these new markets. How do firms develop the capabilities necessary to succeed in such changing conditions? Some suggest that experience with previous entry builds such capabilities. Others suggest that capabilities arise from experience producing and selling to existing markets. The role of managers is also debated. Some argue that experience with existing markets causes managers to miss entry opportunities. Others argue that managers enter new markets when their firm possesses the experience needed to compete effectively. In this paper, we explore these issues by investigating entry patterns in the disk-drive industry. We investigate the effect of experience in existing markets and experience with previous market entry. We find that experience in previous markets increased the probability that a firm would enter a new market. We show that this experience had greater value if the firm entered the new market. We infer that managers chose to enter these markets to obtain this increase in value.Disk Drives, Dynamic Capabilities, Niche Innovation, Market Entry, Organizational Inertia, Experience

This chapter offers a broad review of the literature at the nexus between Business Models and innovation studies and examines the notion of Business Model Innovation in three different situations: Business Model Design in newly formed organizations, Business Model Reconfiguration in incumbent firms, and Business Model Innovation in the broad context of sustainability. Tools and perspectives to make sense of Business Models and support managers and entrepreneurs in dealing with Business Model Innovation are reviewed and organized around a synthesizing meta-framework. The framework elucidates the nature of the complementarities across various perspectives. Finally, the use of business model-related ideas in practice is discussed, and critical managerial challenges as they relate to Business Model Innovation and managing business models are identified and examined.

a b s t r a c tThis paper extends the line of research attempting to link innovation to economic growth by addressing some unexplored questions. Using global patent data, this paper empirically investigates the importance of both the quantity and quality of innovation on economic growth, controlling for past measures of inventive inputs. Moreover, our research examines how innovation inputs can be translated into per capita growth under the various economic structures and stages of economic development. Based on a sample of 58 countries for the period 1980-2003, our empirical results indicate that countries hosting firms with higher quality patents also have higher economic growth. Furthermore, we have some evidence that those countries that increase the level of patenting also witness a concomitant increase in economic growth.

Industries characterized by interfirm modularity, in which the component products of different firms work together to create a system, are becoming increasingly widespread. In such industries, the existence of a common architecture enables consumers to mix and match the products of different firms. Industries ranging from stereos, cameras, and bicycles to computers, printing, and wireless services are now characterized by interfirm modularity. While the increasing presence of this context has been documented, the implications for the product development process remain underdeveloped. For the present study, in-depth field-based case studies of seven firms experiencing an environment of interfirm modularity were conducted in order to deepen understanding of this important phenomenon. What unique challenges did this context pose and why? What solutions did firms experiment with, and which seemed to work?Based on an inductive process of data analysis from these case studies, three primary categories of challenges raised by this environment were identified. First, firms were frustrated at their lack of control over the definition of their own products. The set of features and functions in products were constrained to a great extent by an architecture that the firm did not control. Second, while an environment of interfirm modularity should in theory eliminate interdependencies among firms since interfaces between products are defined ex-ante, the present study found, ironically, that interdependencies were ubiquitous. Interdependencies continually emerged throughout the product development process, despite efforts to limit them. Third, firms found that the quantity and variegated nature of external relationships made their management exceedingly difficult. The sheer complexity was daunting, given both the size of the external network as well as the number of ties per external collaborator. Partners with whom control over the architecture was shared often had divergent interests-or at least not fully convergent interests.The solutions to these challenges were creative and in many cases counter to established wisdom. For instance, research has suggested many ways for a firm to influence architectural standards. While the firms in the present sample followed some of this advice, they also focused on a more neglected aspect of architecturethe compliance and testing standards that accompany modules and interfaces. By concentrating their efforts in a different area, even smaller firms in this sample were able to have some influence. Instead of focusing on the elimination of à We wish to gratefully acknowledge the support and feedback we received on this article from the editor of JPIM, Abbie Griffin, two anonymous JPIM referees,

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