Business model innovation in International vs domestic SMEs: The role of strategic orientations and performance outcomes

Internal Seminar for Researchers 

Research Area: Management: Strategy, International Management & Business, and Entrepreneurship (SIMBE) 

Abstract: Firms gain a competitive advantage through business model innovation (BMI), as it leads to novel activities that go beyond product and process innovation. Notwithstanding the burgeoning literature on BMI, however, there has been limited empirical research on what determines it, particularly in the case of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). While scholars suggest that strategic orientations may determine BMI, we know little about which strategic orientations can lead to BMI in SMEs. Further, whether the effect of BMI on performance differs for domestic SMEs from international SMEs remains untested. Building on data from 141 SMEs in Finland, our results show that learning, entrepreneurial, and environmental orientations lead to BMI, and BMI in turn leads to superior performance in SMEs. Our results, however, show that these relationships differ for domestic SMEs from international SMEs. We contribute to the research on BMI in SMEs, by exploring the antecedents and outcomes of BMI and comparing international SMEs with domestic ones.