Recent rapid advances in Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) have highlighted the rising importance of the Business Model (BM) concept in the field of Information Systems (IS). Despite agreement on its importance to an organization's success, the concept is still fuzzy and vague, and there is little consensus regarding its compositional facets. Identifying the fundamental concepts, modeling principles, practical functions, and reach of the BM relevant to IS and other business concepts is by no means complete. This paper, following a comprehensive review of the literature, principally employs the content analysis method and utilizes a deductive reasoning approach to provide a hierarchical taxonomy of the BM concepts from which to develop a more comprehensive framework. This framework comprises four fundamental aspects. First, it identifies four primary BM dimensions along with their constituent elements forming a complete ontological structure of the concept. Second, it cohesively organizes the BM modeling principles, that is, guidelines and features. Third, it explains the reach of the concept showing its interactions and intersections with strategy, business processes, and IS so as to place the BM within the world of digital business. Finally, the framework explores three major functions of BMs within digital organizations to shed light on the practical significance of the concept. Hence, this paper links the BM facets in a novel manner offering an intact definition. In doing so, this paper provides a unified conceptual framework for the BM concept that we argue is comprehensive and appropriate to the complex nature of businesses today. This leads to fruitful implications for theory and practice and also enables us to suggest a research agenda using our conceptual framework.

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Developing a unified framework of the business model concept

Business is increasingly employing sustainability practices, aiming to improve environmental and social responsibility while maintaining and improving profitability. For many organizations, profit-...

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An Ontology for Strongly Sustainable Business Models: Defining an Enterprise Framework Compatible With Natural and Social Science

Business models are developed and managed to create value. While most business model frameworks envision value creation as a uni-directional flow between the focal business and its customers, this article presents a broader view based on a stringent application of stakeholder theory. It provides a stakeholder value creation framework derived from key characteristics of stakeholder theory. This article highlights mutual stakeholder relationships in which stakeholders are both recipients and (co-) creators of value in joint value creation processes. Key findings include that the concept and analysis of value creation through business models need to be expanded with regard to (i) different types of value created with and for different stakeholders and (ii) the resulting value portfolio, i.e., the different kinds of value exchanged between the company and its stakeholders. This paper details the application of the stakeholder value creation framework and its theoretical propositions for the case of business models for sustainability. The framework aims to support theoretical and empirical analyses of value creation as well as the management and transformation of business models in line with corporate sustainability ambitions and stakeholder expectations. Overall, this paper proposes a shift in perspective from business models as devices of sheer value creation to business models as devices that organize and facilitate stakeholder relationships and corresponding value exchanges.

A Stakeholder Theory Perspective on Business Models: Value Creation for Sustainability

Engineering of process-driven business applications can be supported by process modeling efforts in order to bridge the gap between business requirements and system specifications. However, diverging purposes of business process modeling initiatives have led to significant problems in aligning related models at different abstract levels and different perspectives. Checking the consistency of such corresponding models is a major challenge for process modeling theory and practice. In this paper, we take the inappropriateness of existing strict notions of behavioral equivalence as a starting point. Our contribution is a concept called behavioral profile that captures the essential behavioral constraints of a process model. We show that these profiles can be computed efficiently, i.e., in cubic time for sound free-choice Petri nets w.r.t. their number of places and transitions. We use behavioral profiles for the definition of a formal notion of consistency which is less sensitive to model projections than common criteria of behavioral equivalence and allows for quantifying deviation in a metric way. The derivation of behavioral profiles and the calculation of a degree of consistency have been implemented to demonstrate the applicability of our approach. We also report the findings from checking consistency between partially overlapping models of the SAP reference model.

Efficient Consistency Measurement Based on Behavioral Profiles of Process Models

Recent rapid advances in ICTs, specifically in Internet and mobile technologies, have highlighted the rising importance of the Business Model (BM) in Information Systems (IS). Despite agreement on its importance to an organization’s success, the concept is still fuzzy and vague, and there is no consensus regarding its definition. Furthermore, understanding the BM domain by identifying its meaning, fundamental pillars, and its relevance to other business concepts is by no means complete. In this paper we aim to provide further clarification by first presenting a classification of definitions found in the IS literature; second, proposing guidelines on which to develop a more comprehensive definition in order to reach consensus; and third, identifying the four main business model concepts and values and their interaction, and thus place the business model within the world of digital business. Based on this discussion, we propose a new definition for the business model that we argue is more appropriate to this new world.

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Defining the business model in the new world of digital business

Ontologies are viewed as increasingly important tools for structuring domains of interests. In this paper we propose a reference ontology of business models using concepts from three established business model ontologies; the REA, BMO, and e3-value. The basic concepts in the reference ontology concern actors, resources, and the transfer of resources between actors. Most of the concepts in the reference ontology are taken from one of the original ontologies, but we have also introduced a number of additional concepts, primarily related to resource transfers between business actors. The purpose of the proposed ontology is to increase the understanding of the original ontologies as well as the relationships between them, and also to seek opportunities to complement and improve on them.

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Towards a reference ontology for business models

It is increasingly recognized that business models offer an abstraction that is useful not only in the exploration of new business networks but also for the design and redesign of operational business processes. Among others, they can be used as input for a risk analysis that is crucial in cross-organizational business process design. However, the notion of value object is up till now not clearly defined. In this paper we investigate the notion of value, value objects and the activities involved when transferring value objects between business actors. We illustrate the proposed value object model by applying it on the well-known conference case.

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On the notion of value object

In this paper, a declarative foundation for process models is proposed. Three issues in process management and modeling are identified: business orientation, traceability, and flexibility. It is shown how these issues can be addressed by basing process models on business models, where a business model focuses on the transfer of value between agents. As a bridge between business models and process models, the notion of activity dependency model is introduced, which identifies, classifies, and relates activities needed for executing and coordinating value transfers.

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A declarative foundation of process models

E3-value has proven to be a useful modeling technique and method to support the analysis of business models. However, for strategic analysis, the representation of a business model is not sufficient, as it does not include the rationale behind the model. In this paper, we propose an extension of e3-value to support strategic analysis on three dimensions: competition analysis, customer analysis and capability analysis

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Tharaka Ilayperuma

Papers

Towards a reference ontology for business models

On the notion of value object

A declarative foundation of process models

Strategic Analysis Using Value Modeling--The c3-Value Approach

Value object analysis and the transformation from value model to process model