Strategy Innovation as Business Model Reconfiguration

Abstract

The notion of strategy innovation gained popularity during the 1990s among scholars aiming at interpreting firms that were reinventing the way in which they compete compared to the established practice in the industry. Over the following decade, it was the turn of business model innovation to draw much of the spotlight. Both these concepts have not yet matured towards a shared definition, and how they are related is not straightforward, but often implicit or unclear. Through a literature review and by applying the key elements to some innovative firms, this paper aims at bridging these concepts while identifying the basic constituents and dynamics of strategy innovation. Finally, the paper argues that strategy innovation triggers the search for new interpretative schemes in the field of strategy, as it resembles more an art than a science.