Sustainable Value Proposition Research Articles

Simultaneous Experimentation as a Learning Strategy: Business Model Development Under Uncertainty

Ventures operating under uncertainty face challenges defining a sustainable value proposition. Six longitudinal case studies reveal two approaches to business model development: focused commitment and simultaneous experimentation. While focused commitment positively affects initial growth, this commitment and lack of variety jeopardize long‐term survival. Simultaneous experimentation implies lower initial growth levels, but facilitates long‐term survival by enacting variety in a resource‐effective manner. This article enriches organizational learning theory by demonstrating that not only distant search but also simultaneous experimentation results in variety. Moreover, simultaneous experimentation implies effectual behavior and reconciles the apparent juxtaposition between ‘action’ and ‘planning.’ Copyright © 2013 Strategic Management Society.

Expanding bioplastics production: sustainable business innovation in the chemical industry

The case of bioplastics illustrates how business models can link producers and customers through the development of new technologies and products. Chemical companies have assumed that reducing costs, increasing yields, and developing better feedstock supplies will guarantee the success of bioplastics in the market, yet a number of unconventional hurdles exist. Companies need to build markets for bioplastics and to assure customers that bioplastics are indeed sustainably made. We contend that companies are most able to develop business models that bring bioplastics to market effectively when they develop and mobilize their “dynamic capabilities” around sustainability. DuPont, BASF, and Braskem have identified new market opportunities for bioplastics, designed distinctive types of business models to seize these opportunities, and devised ways to create increased value by communicating performance advantages and environmental impact reduction to downstream entities. Because they have not included societal actors in their efforts to define sustainability, the firms face significant risk that their sustainable value propositions may not endure without further innovations in creating accountability systems.

Design-Driven Innovation for Sustainability: A New Method for Developing a Sustainable Value Proposition

This paper offers two starting points bridged by a question: The first point is the field of sustainability concepts that can help transform a resource-wasting society into a sustainable one. The second point is the field of design-driven innovation that can generate sustainable economic success by designing products and services that meet people's needs. A question bridges these two starting points: How do we design sustainable products to make them more successful? This essay introduces a tool to help companies develop innovative products and services that are sustainable for the environment, the economy and society: the Sustainable Value Proposition Tool (SVPT).

Comparing future options for human space flight

The paper analyzes the “value proposition” for government-funded human space flight, a vexing question that persistently dogs efforts to justify its $10 10/year expense in the US. The original Mercury/Gemini/Apollo value proposition is not valid today. Neither was it the value proposition actually promoted by von Braun, which the post-Apollo 80% of human space flight history has persistently attempted to fulfill. Divergent potential objectives for human space flight are captured in four strategic options— Explore Mars; accelerate Space Passenger Travel; enable Space Power for Earth; and Settle the Moon—which are then analyzed for their purpose, societal myth, legacy benefits, core needs, and result as measured by the number and type of humans they would fly in space. This simple framework is proposed as a way to support productive dialog with public and other stakeholders, to determine a sustainable value proposition for human space flight.

Knowledge has legs: personal knowledge strategies shape the future of knowledge work and knowledge management

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to mobilize organizations to look at knowledge management through the lens of the individuals whose knowledge they covet and to seek to leverage in order to establish a faster, more flexible and mutually supportive conduit to relevant knowledge and more sustainable knowledge contributions.Design/methodology/approachThis is a discussion paper based on the authors' recent dissertation thesis: “A theoretical model of knowledge strategies for professionals in volatile business settings”.FindingsOrganizations can no longer promise lifelong employment even to their best employees. Striving to safeguard employability instead, organizations and individuals can recalibrate the contributive value of their knowledge in a mutually‐ beneficial way even in short‐term, medium‐term or highly volatile employment settings. The resulting bottom‐up approach for managing personal knowledge reduces the friction and mistrust often associated with top‐down knowledge management. It sets the stage for an environment that manages for knowledge, both individually and collectively.Originality/valueSome individuals have learned to navigate the emerging knowledge economy successfully and craft sustainable value propositions for themselves based on what they know. The research identified the concept of knowledge empowerment and six knowledge strategies and their supporting elements as key enablers for this success. One of these strategies – Lifelong Learning – is explored in detail to demonstrate the transformational power of an additional vantage point that considers individuals as stakeholders and not just as contributors in the knowledge quest. This resets the responsibility for knowledge acquisition, creation and leverage and establishes the need for more extensive personal knowledge management as a subset of organizational knowledge management. This aspect of knowledge management has only been marginally explored in the knowledge management literature to date.

New issues and opportunities in service design research

In an era of intense high-speed competition, offering to the marketplace a sustainable and profitable value proposition that effectively leverages a firm’s financial, human, and operational resources is critical to both established and emerging businesses. To complicate matters further, in emerging industries such as e-services, customers often do not know what they want or need, consequently limiting a the company’s ability to engineer market-winning product–service solutions. While companies develop their own strategies to compete effectively in the “new” new economy, this competitive environment offers many opportunities to scholars interest in studying services. For example, should an enterprise merely try to adapt to the e-services marketplace? Should it keep juggling with the endless list of alternative service offerings? Or should it strive to shape the future of the business environment within which it operates by offering innovative product–service bundles?

Technological infrastructure and regional economic development of biotechnology firms

Supported by the Internet of Things (IoT) technology, bike-sharing services have become increasingly popular in recent years. For example, in China, by the end of 2017, the number of service users had doubled in half a year to reach 221 million users (28.6% of the country’s Internet users); the market for bike-sharing services equated to £1.18 billion, an eightfold increase from 2016. In this research, we focus on the sustainability of the dockless bike-sharing industry, and analyze how firms achieve sustainability through innovating on business models to adapt to business environments. We have developed a framework of sustainable business model analysis that links business model innovation with the business environment. The sustainable value proposition dimension of the framework includes social-environmental benefits as an element. Applying this framework to analyze the case of Mobike, a leading dockless bike-sharing operator, we disclose the paths of its business model innovation in China and the UK determined by the business environment. The proposed framework can be used in future research of sustainable business model analysis and design. The case study findings extend knowledge about the emerging dockless bike-sharing industry. Practical implications are drawn from the case study for firms within the sharing economy to achieve sustainability through business model innovation, and for the government to support the sharing economy to achieve sustainable development.