Configurations of business model themes and strategies in small firms: a qualitative comparative analysis

Diego Campagnolo (), Martina Gianecchini () and Luigi Mosca ()
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Diego Campagnolo: University of Padova
Martina Gianecchini: University of Padova
Luigi Mosca: Imperial College Business School

Journal of Management & Governance, 2024, vol. 28, issue 3, No 5, 29 pages

Abstract: Abstract Firms’ strategies and business model themes (BMTs) entail choices that create a configuration of interdependent elements that ultimately affect a firm’s performance. So far, extant studies on BMTs (i.e. novelty, efficiency, complementarity and lock-in) have neglected an explorative analysis of how configurations of BMTs and the choices of a firm’s strategy (namely, the source of the competitive advantage and the market scope) are associated with a firm’s performance in small and medium enterprises (SMEs). We address this limitation by analysing a sample of 96 small firms using a configurational approach. We identified four equifinal configurations leading to high performance and five equifinal configurations associated with low performance. Overall, our results suggest that in small firms, it is essential to combine a differentiation strategy with either consistent pairs of BMTs or the search for new avenues of value creation and capture, while featuring too many BMTs might be detrimental to their growth. Our study contributes to the scholarly debate about the relationship between business models and strategy.

Keywords: Business models; Strategy; Configurational approach; Small and medium firms; fsQCA (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
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DOI: 10.1007/s10997-023-09680-x

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