PRESENTACIÓN Y DISCUSIÓN DE LOS RESULTADOS

This section aims to provide different examples from the literature where the BM concept is applied to demonstrate the effectiveness of such a concept. The examples will be provided below, but are not exhaustive, rather illustrative.

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3.2.3.1. The business model as a source of competitive advantage

Competitive advantage is identified as an advantage that a company has over its rival competitors, allowing a company to sustain profits or retain more customers than its competitors. The principle goal of the majority of business strategies is to attain a sustainable competitive advantage (O'Farrell, Kitchens, & Moffat, 1993; Ormanidhi & Stringa, 2008; M.E. Porter, 1998).

Successful companies create and sustain value by doing things differently from their competitors. According to (Pekuri et al., 2013), the viability of for-profit companies is related to the way they capture value and consequently generate profits. In addition, (Shafer et al., 2005) argued that the viability of companies relies on performing two essential functions which are ‘creating value’ and ‘capturing value’. The literature of BMs is populated with different stories of how a good BM is essential to every successful company. Magretta (2002) even argued that when a BM is hard to imitate and changes the economics of an industry, it can create a competitive advantage. In addition, Al-Debei and Avison (2010) suggested that digital businesses can enhance their competitive advantage by adopting a suitable BM which can improve their ability to respond quickly to rapid environmental changes. Furthermore, different scholars highlighted the importance of BMs innovation in achieving competitive advantage. For example, (Johnson et al., 2008) suggested that BM innovation in general is increasingly significant for success, rather than service or product innovation. Hamel (2000) cited in (Pekuri et al., 2013) even argued that BM innovation is the only way to outperform the competition, even temporarily. In the literature, there is thus a clear relationship between the BM of a company and its innovation activities (Boons & Lüdeke-Freund, 2013). In general, scholars (Mitchell & Coles, 2003; Morris, Schindehutte, & Allen, 2005; Teece, 2010) agreed that if the BM is sufficiently differentiated to meet particular customers’ segment expectations and is difficult to replicate, it can become a source of competitive advantage.

Innovating and transforming BMs are difficult tasks because only a few managers understand their companies existing BMs (Johnson et al., 2008). These tasks can become easier by proper BM analysis using a set of key defined elements. According to Pekuri et al. (2013), the key defined elements can give managers a practical tool to recognise, design, and evaluate BMs, and most significantly, to analyse the interdependencies between the elements. In short, the BM concept has become a

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management tool that is currently used in virtually all kinds of companies to create a competitive advantage.

3.2.3.2. The business model in the field of information systems (IS)

The existing BM research mainly tends to define the concept in the context of the study, to establish its elements, and to suggest practical approaches to benefit from BMs in that context. For example, Al-Debei and Avison (2010) developed a framework of the BM for the IS discipline, based on a comprehensive review of the IS, e-Business, e- Commerce, the technology industry, and business management literature. In developing this framework, they defined the BM concept, developed four BM dimensions with their elements, organised modelling principles, placed the BM within the digital business, and explored functions of BMs within digital organisations. Their approach can be regarded as a comprehensive and novel approach, hence it will be relevant as an application of BMs.

In recent years, the business world has experienced a huge transformation from the traditional ways of doing business to the new ways of digital business. This transition is governed by a high level of competition, a dynamic environment, uncertainty, and knowledge and information creation and innovation. Therefore, the traditional and simple processes in doing business are not relevant in this new and complex era. The world of traditional business is characterised by two aspects which are business strategy and business operation. However, when applying these two aspects in the digital business, a gap can be identified which calls for new ways of thinking. Scholars believe that BMs have the potential to fill this gap.

Al-Debei and Avison (2010) developed the V4 BM dimensions which form the basis of designing, analysing, and evaluating BMs in IS-related domains. These dimensions explain the primary components of the BM concept and include the following:

 Value proposition dimension relates to what a digital organisation offers, including products or services with their related information;

 Value architecture dimension comprises tangible and intangible organisational assets and core competencies or the infrastructure and its configuration of a given digital organisation, including technology;

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 Value network dimension represents the inter-organisation and cross-company relationship where value is created and enabled by collaboration and coordination between different companies, stakeholders, and parties; and

 Value finance dimension depicts information related to economic and finance design of the business model, including costing structure, pricing method, and revenue model.

Although the authors developed four different dimensions of BMs, they highlighted the interdependent relationship between these dimensions. This view is fundamental in BMs thinking because they provide a systematic and consistent tool for explaining the business logic. Furthermore, the authors suggested three main roles of BMs within digital businesses and organisations. Firstly, the role of BMs as an alignment instrument between the different organisational layers including strategy and business processes, with IS. However, for digital businesses to survive, the strategy, BM, and business processes with their IS, should be regarded as a harmonised bundle that needs to be reviewed continually to respond to the external environment as well as stakeholder interests. Secondly, the function of BM as a mediating framework between the strategic goal and technology innovation. In this function, the BM is perceived as the main reason behind a technologies’ success or failure in a given digital organisation. Therefore, the value of digital innovation can be captured by utilising the BMs concept. Finally, the role of BMs as knowledge capital to enhance an organisation’s innovation capability and decision-making practices to ultimately enable the organisation to achieve sustainable competitive advantage. This function suggests that an organisation’s understanding of its BM with an explicit depiction of it will be a distinctive form of knowledge and crucial asset to this organisation.

3.2.3.3. The business model in project businesses

This section aims to present an application of the BM concept in the project-based context to demonstrate the effectiveness of such a concept in different disciplines. Scholars applied the BM concept to understand the project business logic. This application can be because of the following two reasons: firstly, project-based companies have expanded into a wide range of industries such as consulting and professional services, cultural and sport industries, and the construction industry. Secondly, the inclusion of services in project businesses has forced modern companies

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to find new ways of doing business. For example, Artto (2010) used multiple case studies to study six project-based companies operating in different industries such as construction, telecom, energy, and shipbuilding. The main aim of the study was to identify and categorise the BMs in these different companies. They were able to identify 19 BMs that further clustered into three main categories based on the organisational entity. The three categories are as follows:

 BMs for single projects: these models target individual projects and aim at efficient delivery of technical knowledge and equipment. They also tend to focus on internal matters of projects rather than external matters and clients’ involvement. Individual projects involve many players, hence these business models have flexibility to incorporate other business models of different players within a project’s delivery. The value proposition in this category is limited to certain products and their related services such as logistics, manufacturing, and service support during operation.

 BMs for project networks: this category offered systems integration of other companies’ activities by using engineering and organisational network competences. These BMs have focused on clients’ strategic benefits by combining both products and services, hence the models require an understanding of clients’ need and ability to provide flexible offerings in various integration settings. In addition, they are characterised by a complex and demanding organisational setup and relationship because they link the project suppliers to clients and other stakeholders. Therefore, these models span beyond the single company boundaries and integrate network partners and other external stakeholders.

 BMs for business networks: the BMs in this category include a large network of actors which interact with other related stakeholder and BMs. Therefore, these models create value for several actors including clients, contractors, and subcontractors and aim at profitable growth for the involved actors. A challenge that often occurs here is the creation and alignment of a new alliance of organisational actors who trust each other and are devoted to a common project aim, connecting them technologically, economically, and socially. The BMs seek long-term benefits by developing a closer and more sustainable client

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relationship and offering complete solutions. The findings in this category indicate that, in general, project- based companies operating in the same business networks or industry have similar business models. These findings demonstrate the systematic nature of BMs, hence managers can benefit from it to challenge the way they conduct the business and to develop new value creation and capture logics.

The overall findings of the three categories of BMs suggested that a company may have several BMs. However, the BM research mainly tends to address the concept at the level of the entire company or at the level of the business unit of a company, which will be applied in this research. Having presented an overall backdrop of the emergence of the BMs in the business and management disciplines, the following section presents the BMs development in the building and construction disciplines.

3.3. Emergence of the business models in the building and