Open Business Models and Industrial Marketing: A Multiple Industry-Practice Perspective

This paper presents an early contribution to the concept of open business models (OBMs) - those business models (BMs) in which value is co-created between practitioners outside the boundaries of a single firm. Whilst the BM concept has become well established in industrial marketing (IM) scholarship, only a small number of empirical papers have focussed on the concept of open business models (OBMs). This paper reports an empirical study into an open-business model. Further, as a challenge to the predominant static or processual understanding of BMs and OBMs, the findings presented here advance current understanding by examining OBMs as strategic practice. By focussing on practitioners and their capabilities in OBMs, this approach therefore addresses the undersocialisation of current BM research and adds micro-level insight into the functioning of OBMs. Insight is offered into value capture and value co-creation as strategic practices. As the focal OBM crosses industry and sectoral boundaries, the research also adds knowledge where it is currently lacking into the importance of boundary-spanning practitioners in OBMs. Keywords: Open Business Models, Industrial marketing, Business ecosystems, Value co-creation, Strategy-as-practice.