Identifying business models through the analysis of corporate websites

In the ongoing digital era, firms have been increasingly relying on their corporate websites to present their story, their mission, their core activities and their business models, and in doing so they can effectively reach a significant number of potential and actual consumers. In this study, we identify the business model (BM) of a sample of Italian manufacturing firms, both at the firm and at the sectoral level, using first-hand information from the corporate websites; after that, we investigate the link between BM adoption and firm performance. We find that companies that adopt the prevailing average industry business model (i.e., about 90% of our sample) tend to exhibit a performance that is in line with the average one of its sector. Conversely, companies that choose divergent business models expose themselves to the potential for different performance outcomes, which can be either better or worse than the sectoral ones.