Emerging Business Models in Education Provisioning: A Case Study on Providing Learning Support as Education-as-a-Service

Abstract

This study aims to give a deeper understanding on emerging business models in the context of education. Industry 4.0/the Industrial Internet in general and especially recent advances in cloud computing enable a new kind of service offering in the education sector and lead to new business models for education: Education-as-a-Service (EaaS). Within EaaS, learning, and teaching contents are delivered as services. By combining a literature review with a qualitative case study, this paper makes a three-fold contribution to the field of business models in education: First, we provide a theoretical definition for a common understanding of EaaS. Second, we present the state-of-the-art research on this new paradigm. Third, in the case study we describe a “best practices” business model of an existing EaaS provider. These insights build a theoretical foundation for further research in this area. The paper concludes with a research agenda for further research in this emerging field.