Goal orientation and business model innovation in dynamic environments: Evidence from the creative industries

Abstract

Even though business model innovation (BMI) is crucial to enhance competitive advantage, our understanding about how organizations innovate their business model when pursuing contrasting goals is rather underdeveloped. To address this issue, we explore how and why managers' learning and performance orientations affect BMI. Using a survey among managers at companies within the creative industries, such as design, architecture and gaming, we find a positive relationship between learning orientation and BMI, while a performance orientation does not affect the ability to innovate the business model. We also explain that learning orientation has a stronger effect in dynamic environments. Our study contributes to research on business model, exploring the antecedents of BMI and showing how companies can enhance innovation, while navigating contrasting goals. We also contribute to goal orientation research, showing the consequences of different orientations for companies embracing the complexities of BMI.