Wood We Change? : Business Model Innovation Towards Sustainability Transitions: Studying the Wood Construction Industry

• Innovations based on sustainable technologies have been widely considered as a remedy for addressing societal and environmental problems in many industries. However, the large-scale adoption of such innovations goes beyond technology and requires organizing the business in a way that drive industrial transformations across actors and system layers, such as market structures, institutional frames, consumer behavior, and business values. The aim of this dissertation is to understand how industrial firms organize for system change towards sustainability. The study is a compilation of two papers within the same research context: the development of sustainable technology in the construction industry. The overlapping unit of analysis for both papers is business model innovation. Paper I examines how industry firms combine and complement business models with different innovation types to accelerate sustainable technology. Paper II identifies how a change in the business model and value creation logic that occur on a firm level accelerate sustainable technology and shape the socio-technical system. Together, both papers help paint a more complete picture of the business model role in transitions towards sustainability. The theoretical frame of this dissertation spans several domains: business model, innovation management, and sustainability transitions. Building on a multi-disciplinary premise, the study takes into account the organizational and the systemic parts of the change process by linking the company perspective (business models) to the wider governance of sustainability transitions. The findings underline the importance of business models that combine production efficiency with higher customer engagement and more collective value creation for driving larger-scale transitions toward sustainability. Moreover, business models in combination with different innovation types, such as product, process and positioning, act together and complement each other to achieve high sustainability and business outcomes. 

• Innovations based on sustainable technologies have been widely considered as a remedy for addressing societal and environmental problems in many sectors of our economy. However, the large-scale adoption of such innovations goes beyond technology and requires organizing the business in a way that drives transformations across actors and industries.This dissertation aims to understand how industrial firms organize for system change towards sustainability. The study is a compilation of two papers within the same research context: the development of sustainable wood technology in the construction industry. The overlapping unit of analysis for both papers is business model innovation. Paper I examines how industry firms combine and complement business models with different innovation types to accelerate sustainable technology. Paper II identifies how a change in the business model and value creation logic that occur on a firm level accelerate sustainable technology and shape the socio-technical system. Together, both papers help paint a more complete picture of the business model role in transitions towards sustainability. The theoretical frame of this thesis spans several domains: business model, innovation management, and sustainability transitions. Building on a multi-disciplinary premise, the thesis takes into account the organizational and the systemic parts of the change process by linking the company perspective to the wider governance of sustainability transitions. The thesis outlines two main contributions. First, the results show that business model innovation acts with and complements different innovation types to achieve high sustainability and business value outcomes. Second, the results reveal that scaling sustainable technologies require combining production efficiency with higher customer engagement and more collective value creation. Combining layers of different value creation logics unlocks the potential of novel technology and shape the entire industry towards more sustainable development.

Ämnesord

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Ekonomi och näringsliv -- Företagsekonomi (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Economics and Business -- Business Administration (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

Business model

Innovation types

Sustainability transitions

Sustainable technology

Construction industry

Business Administration

Företagsekonomi

Publikations- och innehållstyp

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