Business model designs, big data analytics capabilities and new product development performance: evidence from China

Purpose - Although the business model (BM) has become a top priority in management research, existing literature still offers a confusing and partial picture about how to leverage BM designs for new product development (NPD) because of two limitations. First, research has paid little attention to different BM designs' effects on NPD performance. Second, few empirical studies have examined the moderating roles of firms' learning capabilities, such as big data analytics capabilities (BDA capabilities). This study aims to investigate the effects of BM novelty design and BM efficiency design on NPD performance and the ways in which BDA capabilities moderate these effects. Design/methodology/approach - A literature review provides the model and hypotheses. Using a sample of 208 Chinese firms, the authors conducted an empirical test following multiple regression analysis. Findings - The results demonstrate that BM novelty design has a positive effect on NPD performance while BM efficiency design takes the form of an inverted U-shape. Moreover, BDA capabilities (i.e. BDA technology capability and BDA management capability) have complicated moderating effects on BM novelty design- and BM efficiency design-NPD performance relationships. Research limitations/implications - The results may be affected by both the context (solely in China) and type (cross-sectional) of the data set. This study has explored the moderating effects of BDA capabilities, further studies considering other significant practices such as social media usage, could yield richer insights that would help validate the results of this study. Practical implications - First, we suggest that managers should be explicitly aware of the different impacts of BM novelty design and BM efficiency design on NPD performance. Second, this study encourages managers to build relevant BDA capabilities to work with BM designs to improve NPD performance. Originality/value - This is one of the first studies to investigate BM designs' complicated influences on NPD success and explore BDA capabilities' moderating effects on the BM design-NPD performance linkage.