BUSINESS MODEL INNOVATION AND STRATEGIC FLEXIBILITY: INSIGHTS FROM AN EXPERIMENTAL RESEARCH DESIGN

Firms engaging in business model innovation are likely to constantly experience environmental turbulence in which remaining strategically flexible is of crucial importance to ensure survival. Drawing on a dynamic capabilities perspective, a framework of hypotheses is established that emphasises the effects of business model innovation on a firm's managerial capabilities and its operational responsiveness that have been argued to antecede strategic flexibility. Using an experimental research design that is built on a between-subject analysis and embodies decision-scenarios, we show how three distinct types of business model innovation (value offering innovation, value architecture innovation, and revenue model innovation) impact on different dimensions of strategic flexibility (resource flexibility, coordination flexibility, and variety of managerial capabilities). Our findings indicate that remaining strategic flexibility is not an implicit result of business model innovation as we identify different effects of the distinct types of business model innovation on the individual dimensions of strategic flexibility.