Deconstructing how a sustainable business model shapes value within a territorial ecosystem

Value shaping within a territorial ecosystem – a value flow that considers value exchanges among multiple actors – is an important developing construct in Business Model (BM) and ecosystem research. Our starting point in this paper is the assumption that the value-shaping process can contribute to sustainable BMs and territorial ecosystem research. Our objective is to describe how processes of shaping are specific and driven by local culture. We derive this observation from a single autoethnographic case study, complemented by a Sustainable Business Model (SBM) approach. We analyse the emergence of an associative venture based on an economic, social and territorial development project via an entrepreneurial approach. Owing to this specific reading of the case, we wish to contribute to the entrepreneurial theory by showing a new way for taking territory into account as a fundamental element.