Analysing Barriers to Sustainable Business Model Innovations: Innovation Systems Approach

Abstract

Business model innovations are recognised as a key to the creation of sustainable business, but their adoption by firms has been slow. Organisations can only be sustainable when the whole societal system is sustainable. Both structural and cultural changes are required to facilitate firm-and system-level sustainability. The central idea of this paper is to examine how societal transition towards sustainable business models (SBMs) can be achieved. Through a qualitative Delphi study, we assess and categorise the key structural and cultural barriers to sustainable business model innovation (SBMI). By applying the innovation system approach, we explain how to overcome existing barriers by strengthening the functions of the innovation system. We analyse how these barriers can be overcome through the activities of governments, firms, and consumers, and discuss the wider implications of our research for practitioners, policy-makers, and researchers.

Sustainable entrepreneurship, innovation, and business models: Integrative framework and propositions for future research

“…The identified list of barriers is extensive but not yet conclusive. Further barriers might be added, such as cognitive effects influencing entrepreneurs' ability to engage in sustainability innovation (e.g., Laukkanen & Patala, ) or limitations imposed by the available resources, competencies, and dynamic capabilities of a firm (Kiefer et al, ). Future research could start by refining these and further analytical variables implied by the BMfSI framework.…”

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“…I strived to include all barriers that were found, in order to be able to convey different perspectives, experiences and learnings. After the initial stages of the analysis, a framework about barriers to SBMI (e.g., Laukkanen & Patala, 2014;Sandberg & Aarikka-Stenroos, 2014), family business research (Maloni et al, 2017), and cognition research (Chesbrough, 2010;Shepherd, 2015) were considered in tandem with the data to analyze what barriers could be explained with existing framework and to find what barriers that did not fit into existing theory. Since the most appropriate description of the findings was to use the model of internal and external barriers (Sandberg & Aarikka-Stenroos, 2014) this was expanded to include new knowledge about contextual barriers.…”

“…Structural barriers arise from unclear policies and regulations or from market and financial issues. Cultural barriers involve behavioral and social issues with, e.g., customers and stakeholders (Laukkanen & Patala, 2014).…”

Sustainable Business Models: Literature Review of Main Contributions and Themes

“…Eight key themes emerged from the analysis of SBM articles. The most frequent theme presented in the articles (44 out of 104) was that of innovation (Carayannis, Sindakis & Walter, 2015;Hu, Huang, Cheng & Lu, 2019;Laukkanen & Patala, 2014). These articles focused on the transition of BMs towards sustainability by identifying the barriers and obstacles rather than the opportunities an enterprise faces when deciding to introduce changes or totally reconsider its BM.…”