Blurred Lines: Leveraging Business Model Ambiguity for Innovation and Agility

ABSTRACT Earlier research has established the cognitive perspective on business models (BM) and business model innovation (BMI), which predominantly assumes that the understanding and interpretation of established BMs are uniform among organizational actors. Our study challenges this view by investigating the implications of BM ambiguity and the related multiplicity of BM schemas within a firm. By drawing on a multiple‐case study, we explore how organizational actors of incumbent firms apply and leverage BM ambiguity. Our findings demonstrate that organizational actors purposefully establish a homogeneous baseline while, at the same time, allowing and embracing partially heterogeneous BM schemas. The emergent theoretical framework reveals three interrelated categories of mechanisms managers apply to cope with BM ambiguity ( seeking uniformity , applying heterogeneity , and realizing BM ambiguity ). Furthermore, we investigate the mechanisms' implications on digital BMI activities and how they can affect organizational agility (OA). In doing so, we contribute to the literature by revealing the positive implications of BM ambiguity for digital BMI, while also providing evidence for ambiguity as a cognitive antecedent for facilitating OA as a higher‐order dynamic capability.