Innovation Capabilities for Product- and Process-Oriented Digital Business Model Innovation of Industrial Firms – A Configurational Approach to Multiplicity

Digital technologies are driving industrial firms towards digital business model innovation (DBMI). In this context, such firms can digitally innovate their value creation processes (i.e., process-oriented DBMI) and/or their offered products (i.e., product-oriented DBMI). In order to carry out such DBMI, we used the theoretical lens of innovation capabilities (ICs) to investigate the interplay of ICs that can lead to product- and/or process-oriented DBMI. Using an innovation-related dataset and fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA), we identified three configurations each of multiple ICs (belonging to the dimensions of managerial, intraorganizational, interorganizational ICs, and digital capabilities) that relate to product- and/or process-oriented DBMI of successful industrial firms. Furthermore, the inductive approach proposed by Park et al. (2020) was employed to further investigate the results of the QCA. In this manner, we derived five propositions across the nine identified configurations, thereby enhancing the multiplicity of the business phenomena and elucidating their multifaceted nature.