The impact of strategic orientation on the business model innovativeness in the food industry

Business models change depending on the intensity of environmental turbulence, technological and industrial changes, radical shifts in consumption habits, and a whole range of other factors. The innovativeness of a business model demonstrates the adaptive ability of the company, i.e., its potential in seeking and creating new sources of competitive advantage. Strategic orientation is the way in which a company directs the implementation of processes and behaviors through which it can achieve superior performance in its industry. It manifests in four forms: market ori entation, technological orientation, learning orientation, and entrepreneurial orientation, while the innovativeness of the business model consists of three dimensions: value creation innova tiveness, new proposition innovativeness, and value capture innovativeness. This paper explores the impact of strategic orientation on the innovativeness of the business model using a sample of Croatian food companies. The results of the empirical research did not support the hypothesis that market orientation positively affects the business model innovativeness, while for the other three forms of strategic orientation, a positive impact on the innovativeness of the business model was confirmed. In a mature industry such as the Croatian food industry, such conclusions indicate the need to focus, first, on technological and entrepreneurial forms of strategic orientation, and second, even more importantly, on learning orientation as a prerequisite for increasing competi tiveness in domestic and international markets.