Exploring business model innovation for sustainable production: lessons from Swedish manufacturers

• Published in: Procedia manufacturing Vol. 25; pp. 247 - 254
• Main Author: Birkie, Seyoum Eshetu
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier B.V 2018
• Subjects: business model innovation; Industrial Economics and Management; Industriell ekonomi och organisation; shared value; sustainable production; sustainable production; shared value; business model innovation
• ISSN: 2351-9789; 2351-9789
• DOI: 10.1016/j.promfg.2018.06.080

Businesses globally are facing changes these days. To remain viable, business model innovation provides a strategic renewal mechanism. However, there are only few studies that investigated such challenging undertaking in light of changes for sustainable manufacturing systems. This study aims to explore practices towards establishing more sustainable production systems of the future. The investigation is based on publicly available data from selected Swedish manufacturers. Closeness of innovations towards some business model archetypes is discussed using the aspects of value proposition, value creation and delivery, and value capture. The findings indicate that a more structured and integrative way of understanding business model innovation for sustainable production is needed. They also imply that the value capture aspect of business models needs to address how different stakeholders, not just the business firm, capture different forms of value. The learning from this study could be used for designing more structured and large scale future research in the subject matter.