Product innovation in entrepreneurial firms: How business model design influences disruptive and adoptive innovation

Abstract

Blockchain technology has the potential to drive product innovation in various industries. This emerging technology is an important enabler of the next generation of new ventures. Our study examines the effects of the business model designs of blockchain-based entrepreneurial firms on the scope of product innovation, including disruptive innovation and adoptive innovation. To test this relationship, we conduct a survey to collect data from 159 blockchain-based ventures. The findings indicate that the novel business model strongly entices disruptive innovation but does not influence adoptive product innovation. The results also indicate that the efficient business model strongly encourages adoptive product innovation, but strongly discourages disruptive product innovation. Further, our analysis shows that the firm's disruptive technological capability strengthens the positive relationship between the novel business model and disruptive product innovation but weakens the positive relationship of design efficiency with adoptive innovation. Additionally, we found that the disruptive technological capability strongly entices blockchain-based entrepreneurial firms to favor disruptive product innovation over adoptive product innovation.