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Business models as service strategy

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Abstract

It is widely recognized that business models can serve as important strategic tools in innovation and market formation processes. Consequently, business models should have a prominent position in the marketing literature. However, marketing scholars have, so far, paid little attention to the business model concept, perhaps because it lacks an established definition and clear theoretical foundation. This article offers a definition for the business model concept that, using a fractal approach, connects business models to technological and market innovation. Furthermore, the article questions several cornerstone strategic concepts by reconceptualizing business model development from a firm-centric activity that promotes owning key resources and altering sets of decision variables to one that highlights the facilitation of broad institutional change processes. As such, it takes the potentially controversial position of advocating a service-strategy-based understanding of business models for all of marketing strategy.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Business, California State University Monterey Bay, 100 Campus Center, Seaside, CA, 93955, USA

    Heiko Wieland

  2. Shidler College of Business, University of Hawai’i at Mānoa, 2404 Maile Way, Honolulu, HI, 96822, USA

    Nathaniel N. Hartmann

  3. Shidler College of Business, University of Hawai’i at Manoa, 2404 Maile Way, Honolulu, HI, 96822, USA

    Stephen L. Vargo

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  1. Heiko Wieland
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  2. Nathaniel N. Hartmann
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  3. Stephen L. Vargo
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Correspondence to Heiko Wieland.

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Wieland, H., Hartmann, N.N. & Vargo, S.L. Business models as service strategy. J. of the Acad. Mark. Sci. 45, 925–943 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11747-017-0531-z

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