Business models for developing smart cities. A fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis of an IoT platform

What different configurations of Business Model (BM) exist in an IoT platform that aims at developing smart cities? To address this research question, we build on BM literature and argue that BM configurations have general characteristics beyond the unique traits of individual firms. We empirically investigate 21 projects for smart cities that participate to a European funded Accelerator using fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA). Our findings reveal the most frequent patters of association among value propositions and BM's building blocks. In so doing, we contribute to explain and analyze the diversity among cases as well as BM's causal complexity.