Stakeholder engagement and business model innovation value

Despite important strides made in the business model literature, substantially less is known regarding its constituent sub-concept of business model innovation (BMI). In particular, the role and dynamics of different stakeholders’ BMI-related engagement remain nebulous, as therefore explored in this paper. Moreover, though business models are recognized to house firm-based value propositions, the nature and extent of stakeholders’ actual perceived BMI-related value (BMIV) remains tenuous, exposing a second research gap. Addressing these issues, we first develop the BMIV concept, defined as a stakeholder’s perceived value created through some nontrivial new aspect in a firm’s value creation, – communication, -delivery, and -capture mechanisms and activities. Using interdependence theory’s outcome transformation, we then develop a conceptual model that recognizes the role of different BMI stakeholders’ interdependent engagement in creating BMIV. Specifically, BMI stakeholders are predicted to consider the goals/interests of focal others, alongside their own, in their BMI-related engagement, in turn affecting all these stakeholders’ BMIV. We predict BMIV-based stakeholder engagement to differ based on whether stakeholders’ goals/interests converge or diverge: While converging stakeholder goals tend to yield cooperative/equality-based SE, diverging goals trigger altruistic/aggressive SE, as formalized in a set of propositions. We conclude by deriving important implications from our analyses.