When bike sharing business models go bad: Incorporating responsibility into business model innovation

Thomas B Long,Arnoud Van Waes

doi:10.1016/j.jclepro.2021.126679

Thomas B Long, Arnoud Van Waes

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2021.126679

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Abstract

Innovations to business models are particularly promising for tackling societal challenges. However, innovation outcomes can be unpredictable. To minimise negative impacts and enhance the success of business model innovation processes, we argue that socio-ethical issues must be incorporated and managed. Research on responsible innovation, which seeks socially desirable and ethically acceptable innovations via the incorporation of socio-ethical issues, is well developed but has often used a technocentric lens. Consequently, it is unclear how socio-ethical issues interact with business model innovation. We explore how business model innovation interacts with socio-ethical issues and aim to understand the ways responsible innovation can help inform business model innovation processes and outcomes. We do this by exploring platform enabled bike sharing business models in the Netherlands. We construct a theoretical framework considering purpose, process and product dimensions of business model innovation. Our results illustrate how socio-ethical factors can play a key role in the success or failure of business model innovation. We argue that without including socio-ethical factors explicitly within analytical lenses, that key elements may be missed, resulting in an incomplete picture of key business model innovation dynamics.

Highlights

Business model innovation (BMI) is seen as promising in terms of tackling sustainability challenges, such as achieving sustainability mobility, as well as delivering business benefits (Chesbrough, 2010; Freudenreich et al, 2020; Geissdoerfer et al, 2018)
Free-floating bike sharing To realize our research aim, we explore the emergence of a new generation of bike sharing enabled by platform business model innovation: free-floating bike sharing (FFBS)
We explore how BMI interacts with socio-ethical factors through the context of bike sharing in three Dutch cities, illustrating different impacts and responses: Amsterdam, Rotterdam and Utrecht

Summary

Introduction

Business model innovation (BMI) is seen as promising in terms of tackling sustainability challenges, such as achieving sustainability mobility, as well as delivering business benefits (Chesbrough, 2010; Freudenreich et al, 2020; Geissdoerfer et al, 2018). The sharing economy is one example of a set of innovative business models, enabled by digital platforms, that are disrupting existing industries (Meila, 2018; Owyang et al, 2013) and helping to tackled sustainability challenges (Belk, 2014; Curtis and Lehner, 2019). Car sharing platforms offer temporary access to cars, reducing consumption by increasing the use of ‘idle goods’ (Bondorova and Archer, 2017; Geissinger et al, 2019). As with other BMIs, the promise and potential of platforms, has often not matched actual outcomes and impacts (Acquier et al, 2017; Geissinger et al, 2019; Meila, 2018). While the explosive growth of these types of platforms has created wider social and ethical issues such as privacy concerns, adverse impacts on public space, nuisance or tax avoidance (Frenken et al, 2020; Meila, 2018; van Waes et al, 2020)

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