Research On Business Model Innovation Driven By Information Technology

In the business environment with rapidly changing customer demands and fierce competition,business model innovation has become the tool for creating revenue sand enhancing competitive advantages.With the fast development of the digital economy,information technology(IT)has been widely used to innovate firms’ business models.However,the performance of most firms in using IT to drive business model innovation has not met expectations.Therefore,it is urgent to address how to effectively use IT to facilitate business model innovation.Despite their significance,existing studies fail to fully consider the complexity of IT value creation and the knowledge of the relationship between IT and business model innovation is still lacking.This paper aims to deepen the understanding of the relationship between IT and business model innovation based on the IT value creation process(i.e.,IT investments,IT configuration,and IT alignment),thus helping firms understand how to use IT to promote business model innovation.First,Study 1 explores the relationship between IT investment and business model innovation.In the IT investments phase,firms need to decide whether should make IT investments to support business model innovation and how to enhance the effectiveness of IT investment.Based on the resource-based view,study 1 explores the influence of IT investments on business model innovation and reveals the moderating effect of top managers’ regulatory focus and the effects of the three-way interactions among board independence,top managers’ regulatory focus,and IT investments.Using data from 2741 Chinese listed firms between 2007 and 2019,study 1 finds that:(1)IT investment is positive related to business model innovation;(2)Top managers’ promotion focus strengthens the positive relationship between IT investment and business model innovation;(3)The board independence weakens the positive moderating effect of top managers’ promotion focus;(4)IT investment has significant positive effects on business model innovation when both board independence and top managers’prevention focus are low.Second,study 2 examines the influence of IT configuration on business model innovation.In the IT configuration phase,firms face the challenge of how to allocate IT resources to support business model innovation because of limited IT budgets.Meanwhile,firms pursuing business model innovation with different orientations will configure IT resources differently.Existing research has not paid enough attention to the impact of IT configuration on business model innovation..In line with organizational learning theory,study 2 explores the individual and joint effects of two types of IT resource management capabilities(i.e.,IT exploration and IT exploitation)on business model innovation.IT exploration refers to the experiment with new IT resources and practices,while IT exploitation refers to the exploitation of existing IT resources and practices.Based on questionnaire data of 183 firms from the Yangtze River Delta region of China,the results show that:(1)IT exploration is positively related to both novelty-and efficiency-centered business model innovation;(2)IT exploitation is positively related to efficiency-centered business model innovation;(3)When IT exploration and IT exploitation are balanced,a high absolute value of them brings higher novelty-and efficiency-centered business model innovation;(4)As the imbalance between IT exploration and IT exploitation increases,the degree of noveltycentered business model innovation decreases while the degree of efficiency-centered business model innovation increases.Third,study 3 focuses on the influence of IT-business alignment on business model innovation in the IT alignment phase.IT-business alignment can help firms identify new opportunities and develop new markets as well as constrain their flexibility.At present,managers are still unclear about how IT and business process matching will affect business model innovation.Existing studies also provided limited knowledge on such a question.Based on the knowledge-based view,study 3 examines the relationship between IT-business alignment and business model innovation,discusses the mediating role of absorptive capability,and reveals the moderating role of data-driven culture and data analytic skills in such a relationship.Survey data collected from 597 firms in China’s Yangtze River Delta region are used to examine hypothesizes.The results indicate that(1)IT-business alignment is positively related to both novelty-and efficiency-centered business model innovation;(2)Absorptive capability serves as a positive mediator in the relationship between IT-business alignment and novelty-and efficiency-centered business model innovation;(3)Data-driven culture and data analytic skills positively moderates the indirect effects of IT-business alignment on two types of business model innovation via absorptive capability.Based on IT value creation process,this paper investigates the relationship between IT and business model innovation,thus making the following theoretical and managerial contributions.Frist,this paper systematically supplements the existing research on the relationship between IT and business model innovation.Specifically,drawing on IT value creation process,this paper deeply explores how IT affects business model innovation,including proving the positive effect of IT investment on business model innovation,analyzing how different combinations of IT exploration and exploitation affect business model innovation,and revealing the direct and indirect impact of IT-business alignment on business model innovation.Secondly,this paper indicates the theoretical boundary of the relationship between IT and business model innovation from multiple perspectives by analyzing the moderating effects of top management regulatory focus and board independence in the relationship between IT investments and business model innovation and revealing the moderating role of datadriven culture and data analytic skills in the relationship between IT-business alignment and business model innovation.Finally,this paper enriches the literature on IT value creation outcomes and business model innovation antecedents.From the practical perspective,this paper also helps managers fully realize the importance of IT in business model innovation and understand how to enhance the effects of IT on business model innovation,guides firms to adjust top management team and board groups,develops different IT resource allocation schemes to achieve different types of business model innovation,introduces the path of supporting business model innovation through IT-business alignment.