Knowledge Acquisition for a New Business Model Creation and Enabling Factors

Abstract: Title: Knowledge acquisition for a new business model creation and enabling factors Date of the seminar: 28-05-2015 Course: Master Corporate Entrepreneurship and Innovation Internship and Degree Project (Master Thesis 15 ECTS) Authors: Dovilė Gedvilaitė and Shubhabrata Paul Supervisor: Dr. Joakim Winborg Keywords: business model innovation, change, creation, knowledge, knowledge acquisition, absorptive capacity Thesis purpose: To find out how organisation performs knowledge acquisition for a new business model creation and what factors enable it. Methodology: The carried research is a case study based on a qualitative research design. The data collection procedure for this study has been a series of semi-structured and unstructured interviews conducted at the internship company. The interviewees and their relatively spread out positions within the company having varied responsibilities have provided the empirical data which being qualitative in nature are more elaborative and exploratory. This has meant discovery of enabling conditions for knowledge acquisition in the new business model creation and identification of the components of the process by which the organisation proceeded with the change and realized it. Theoretical perspectives: Business model innovation and change theory (Zott et al. 2011), (Zott & Amit, 2007), (Teece, 2010), (Richardson, 2008), (Cavalcante et al., 2011), Organisational knowledge creation theory (Nonaka, 1994), (Nonaka & Krogh, 2009), Absorptive capacity (Cohen & Levinthal, 1990), (Zahra & George, 2002) Conclusions: This thesis work builds on the seminal work of Nonaka (1994) in contributing to the adaptation and/or expansion of the organisational knowledge creation framework to the knowledge acquisition process during an organisation’s new business model creation. Key components are identified in this dynamic interplay between knowledge acquisition and business model creation and modified framework is proposed.