Saku J. Mäkinen

Assessing business model concepts with taxonomical research criteria: A preliminary study

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to synthesize taxonomical criteria that can be used for assessing research constructs and assess current business model conceptualizations. The paper attempts to show how the criticism plaguing current business model conceptualizations could be removed with future conceptual development against these taxonomical criteria.Design/methodology/approach – The paper synthesizes taxonomical criteria and assesses current business model conceptualizations.Findings – The results of the paper revealed that the current business model concepts comply poorly with the taxonomical criteria. The assessment of taxonomical compliance in this paper exposed major opportunities for enhancements in the existing conceptualizations of business model.Research limitations/implications – The findings of the paper outline novel avenues for future research in developing more coherent and rigorous business model conceptualizations.Practical implications – The practical implications of the paper ar...

The Evolution of Corporate Political Action: A Framework for Processual Analysisx

Variance theories have dominated corporate political action (CPA) research because the pioneering works in the 1970s and 1980s. Process theories offer an entirely new perspective on CPA research, as they are able to explain processes across a number of levels of analysis and link actions to contexts. We add to the existing CPA literature by offering a process model that can be useful especially in historical and evolutionary analysis. Our model depicts CPA as a complex system in which a firm’s actions are affected by various factors across organizational, industry, and institutional levels of analysis. As political actions also influence these factors, the process is in essence systemic and path dependent. Our model supplements existing research by offering the possibility to explain the long-term consequences of CPA vis-à-vis wider societal changes and by promoting longitudinal research strategies. In addition to the theoretical model, we provide a historical analysis of the evolution of the Finnish paper and pulp industry to illustrate the applicability of the framework.

Business ecosystem evolution and strategic considerations: A literature review

Business ecosystems describe the network of firms, which collectively produce a holistic, integrated technological system that creates value for customers. Understanding the mode of ecosystem change can provide valuable information for organizations that are positioned in these networked environments. In this paper, we endeavor to provide this understanding by synthesizing the work of scholars in the field business ecosystems through a review of the literature. Our findings underline the roles of ecosystem members, the endogenous and exogenous factors of ecosystem evolution, the dynamics of ecosystem change, and the strategic consideration of firms that participate in business ecosystems.

Empirically detecting the Hype Cycle with the life cycle indicators: An exploratory analysis of three technologies

Hype Cycle is a popular graphic representation of the level of maturity, adoption and business application of a technology, originally introduced by Gartner Research¿s Jackie Fenn. Despite its popularity, the verification or relation to theoretical frameworks is to a large extent missing in current research literature. This paper presents some possible theoretically based conceptualizations and definitions regarding the Hype Cycle. In addition, a bibliometric study of the existence of the Hype Cycle in terms of technology life cycle indicators, specifically in applied research and application phases, was carried out.

Dynamics of Reverse Salience as Technological Performance Gap: An Empirical Study of the Personal Computer Technology System

The evolution of technological systems is hindered by systemic components, referred to as reverse salients, which fail to deliver the necessary level of technological performance thereby inhibiting the performance delivery of the system as a whole. This paper develops a performance gap measure of reverse salience and applies this measurement in the study of the PC (personal computer) technological system, focusing on the evolutions of firstly the CPU (central processing unit) and PC game sub-systems, and secondly the GPU (graphics processing unit) and PC game sub-systems. The measurement of the temporal behavior of reverse salience indicates that the PC game sub-system is the reverse salient, continuously trailing behind the technological performance of the CPU and GPU sub-systems from 1996 through 2006. The technological performance of the PC game sub-system as a reverse salient trails that of the CPU sub-system by up to 2300 MHz with a gradually decreasing performance disparity in recent years. In contrast, the dynamics of the PC game sub-system as a reverse salient trails the GPU sub-system with an ever increasing performance gap throughout the timeframe of analysis. In addition, we further discuss the research and managerial implications of our findings.

Characteristics of innovation in adopting a renewable residential energy system

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the criteria influencing the adoption of innovation in the empirical context of renewable residential energy solutions, particularly the wood pellet heating system.Design/methodology/approach – The study carried out an extensive literature review on Rogers’ characteristics of innovation theory and then complemented it with a content analysis on empirically perceived characteristics of wood pellet heating systems.Findings – The literature review shows that most of the previous studies employ the characteristics of innovation but do not confirm the usability of the Rogers framework as a whole. In addition, our empirical results demonstrate that relative advantage is the predominant characteristic in the adoption of residential energy systems.Research limitations/implications – The limitations of the literature review and the biases of empirical findings are discussed. For instance, there are limitations that the study is based on single country data and ...

Determining reverse salient types and evolutionary dynamics of technology systems with performance disparities

Technological system evolution is marked by the uneven evolution of constituent sub-systems. Subsequently, system evolution is hampered by the resulting state of unevenness, or reverse salience, which results from the presence of the sub-system that delivers the lowest level of performance with respect to other sub-systems, namely, the reverse salient. In this paper, we develop absolute and proportional performance gap measures of reverse salience and, in turn, derive a typology of reverse salients that distinguishes alternative dynamics of change in the evolving system. We subsequently demonstrate the applicability of the measures and the typology through an illustrative empirical study of the PC (personal computer) technological system that functions as a gaming platform. Our empirical analysis demonstrates that patterns of temporal dynamics can be distinguished with the measurement of reverse salience, and that distinct paths of technological system evolution can be identified as different types of reverse salients emerge over time.

Business Ecosystems’ Evolution — An Ecosystem Clockspeed Perspective

There is a growing need for measures assessing technological changes in systemic contexts as business ecosystems replace standalone products. In these ecosystem contexts, organizations are required to manage their innovation processes in increasingly networked and complex environments. In this paper, we introduce the technology and ecosystem clockspeed measures that can be used to assess the temporal nature of technological changes in a business ecosystem. We analyze systemic changes in the personal computer (PC) ecosystem, explicitly focusing on subindustries central to the delivery of PC gaming value to the end user. Our results show that the time-based intensity of technological competition in intertwined subindustries of a business ecosystem may follow various trajectories during the evolution of the ecosystem. Hence, the technology and ecosystem clockspeed measures are able to pinpoint alternating dynamics in technological changes among the subindustries in the business ecosystem. We subsequently discuss organizational considerations and theoretical implications of the proposed measures.

Towards a classification of resources for the business model concept

Recently, a business model concept has been proposed to support managing the exploitation of business opportunities. This paper continues the discussion on the representation of resources as a part of the business model concept. There is a need to select and arrange resources of the firm in order to fulfil the value creation potential and achieve competitive advantage. Although the role of resources has been elucidated in this new field of enquiry, the exposition and the categorisation of resources has been left ambiguous. The contribution of this study is an empirically and theoretically grounded categorisation of the resources that need to be combined with the business model concept in order to exploit rent generation potential.

Technology development in China and India: a comparative evaluation

Purpose – During past ten years China and India have emerged as the favorite destination for R&D investment. In this paper a comparative evaluation of the process of technology development in China and India is carried out. The objective is to identify the rate of growth of technology and the patterns of development in different technology sectors. Design/methodology/approach – The analysis is based on the tangible, measurable and recorded output of the technology development process – namely grant of patents. The authors have used US patents as the surrogate measure for the technological output between 1992 to 2007. The authors obtained data on inventor’s background, ownership pattern of the patents, as well as technology sectors and descriptive statistics are used to compare the trends between the two countries. Findings – The paper finds that both China and India have achieved very high growth rates in patents granted with some resident research between 1992 and 2007. Both have a high percentage of foreign-owned and low percentage of joint ownership of patents. Also, a clear polarization in the composition of research teams is detected in both China and India in that international researcher teams have largely been used only for foreign and jointly owned patents. The authors find that corporations have become much more active in recent years in patenting and multi national companies have led the local companies in patent development across many sectors. The authors also detect some significant differences in the Chinese and Indian pursuit of patent development. About 30 to 35 percent of all patents developed in China are design patents – the rest being utility patents. For India almost all such patents – more than 95 percent – are utility patents. The authors find a clear dominance along the mechanical trajectory among the patents developed in China, while for India a similar dominance is along the chemical trajectory that includes pharmaceuticals and biotechnology. Another interesting finding is the growing share of ICT patents in both China and India, particularly in the last few years China has emerged ahead of India in terms of its patent development as well as in the internationalization of its patent development as reflected in the ownership of patents developed. However, even for foreign patents developed in these countries, researcher collaboration is showing a downward trend. Originality/value – This paper carries out a comparative evaluation of the process of technology development in China and India. The analysis is based on the tangible, measurable and recorded output of the technology development process – namely grant of patents. The paper uses US patents as the surrogate measure for the technological output from China and India.