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Business Model Innovation in SMEs: A Cluster Analysis

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Ensuring Sustainability

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Management and Industrial Engineering ((LNMIE))

Abstract

This paper presents an exploratory analysis focused on identifying and characterizing business model innovation (BMI) in small and medium enterprises (SMEs), a phenomenon that has gained increasing attention in management and challenges many companies’ competitiveness. Based on a purposive sample of 84 SMEs participating in public-supported BMI projects, we explore different BMI-related elements using a two-step cluster analysis, along with an examination of the predictors’ importance and mean differences. The results underline the relevance of BMI management and BMI capabilities in SMEs, as well as stating a degree of importance in the prediction of clusters, suggesting further research opportunities. The research shows two different groups of SMEs that are statistically significant for all clustering variables. The value of this ongoing research lies in its contribution to the quantitative research of BMI in SMEs, as well as in the study of this strategic phenomenon.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Engineering, Mondragon University, Loramendi 4, 20500, Mondragon, Spain

    D. Ibarra, J. I. Igartua & J. Ganzarain

Authors
  1. D. Ibarra
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  2. J. I. Igartua
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  3. J. Ganzarain
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to D. Ibarra .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. E.T.S.I. de Montes, Forestal y del Medio Natural, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, Madrid, Madrid, Spain

    Carmen Avilés-Palacios

  2. E.T.S.I. Industriales, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, Madrid, Madrid, Spain

    Miguel Gutierrez

Ethics declarations

This article does not contain any studies with human participants; all data was gathered from an organizational perspective (position level—1, 2, 3 and years of experience of the respondent), with no personal data in the questionnaire. Companies’ data was also anonymized. Participating companies were informed about the process and data management policy though a presentation letter, voluntarily agreeing to participate in a research study by filling in and returning a questionnaire. The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest, nor work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment. The Research Ethics Committee of Mondragon Unibertsitatea (Ref. IEB-20201201) approved the entire procedure used in the research process.

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Ibarra, D., Igartua, J.I., Ganzarain, J. (2022). Business Model Innovation in SMEs: A Cluster Analysis. In: Avilés-Palacios, C., Gutierrez, M. (eds) Ensuring Sustainability. Lecture Notes in Management and Industrial Engineering. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-95967-8_24

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-95967-8_24

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-95966-1

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-95967-8

  • eBook Packages: EngineeringEngineering (R0)

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