Sustainable dynamic business model framework – value changes during the development process of PV companies in China

Business model dynamics are key to the success of companies. This is particularly the case for sustainability-oriented companies that aim to tackle grand challenges by rethinking how companies create, deliver, and capture value, which can combine profit orientation with social and environmental purposes. However, understanding how companies transit towards sustainable business models through the change of company value logics remains unclear and current business model frameworks cannot capture such dynamics. Combining insights from the literature on sustainable business models and business model dynamics, our study proposed a comprehensive sustainable dynamic business model framework. The proposed framework takes into account the main elements of a sustainable business model and present the mechanisms that drive different sustainability-oriented values, and how their values change and are influenced by internal and external factors during the company development process. The framework is applied in multiple-case analysis of different PV companies in China. The application of the framework shows that it is able to present the mechanisms that drive different sustainability-oriented values and to capture business model dynamics in a comprehensive way and that it allows for case study comparison. The results of our research have significant implications for business model, both in theory and practice.