Yariv Taran, Christian Nielsen, Marco Montemari, Peter Thomsen and Francesco Paolone
Despite the common understanding that business model (BM) innovation is of vital importance for securing competitive positioning in the market place, managers still seem to lack…
Abstract
Purpose
Despite the common understanding that business model (BM) innovation is of vital importance for securing competitive positioning in the market place, managers still seem to lack appropriate frameworks and tools which can support them in renewing and rejuvenating their company’s existing BM. The purpose of this paper is to develop a structural and comprehensive toolbox of available BM configurations, from which companies can choose, to innovate their BM upon, and to design an appropriate BM innovation framework which can facilitate them in re-designing, selecting, and implementing new BM configuration possibilities.
Design/methodology/approach
A structured literature review is conducted to identify all the relevant BM configurations. Then, a value driver analysis is performed to group these BM configurations into appropriate categories. Finally, an ontological classification scheme and a structural and workable process, i.e. a BM innovation framework, are inductively developed.
Findings
The paper systematically develops a list of 71 BM configurations and groups them into an ontological classification scheme according to five groups: Value Proposition, Value Segment, Value Configuration, Value Network, and Value Capture. The paper illustrates how the BM innovation framework, enabled by this ontological classification scheme, provides a platform for identifying BM innovation routes for companies, allowing managers to envisage radical, disruptive, and new-to-the-world BM configuration ideas, or apply existing configurations from other industrial settings in what may be deemed new-to-the-industry innovation.
Originality/value
The paper enriches the amount of potential BM configurations available for managers to choose from when innovating their BMs, and extends the analysis to five core BM configuration categories. Moreover, the BM innovation framework suggested highlights the strong relationships among the value drivers, thus presenting the opportunity for managers to assess potential conflicts or synergies between various value drivers, and to align the BM management process as a whole.
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Daria Arkhipova, Marco Montemari, Chiara Mio and Stefano Marasca
This paper aims to critically examine the accounting and information systems literature to understand the changes that are occurring in the management accounting profession. The…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to critically examine the accounting and information systems literature to understand the changes that are occurring in the management accounting profession. The changes the authors are interested in are linked to technology-driven innovations in managerial decision-making and in organizational structures. In addition, the paper highlights research gaps and opportunities for future research.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors adopted a grounded theory literature review method (Wolfswinkel et al., 2013) to achieve the study’s aims.
Findings
The authors identified four research themes that describe the changes in the management accounting profession due to technology-driven innovations: structured vs unstructured data, human vs algorithm-driven decision-making, delineated vs blurred functional boundaries and hierarchical vs platform-based organizations. The authors also identified tensions mentioned in the literature for each research theme.
Originality/value
Previous studies display a rather narrow focus on the role of digital technologies in accounting work and new competences that management accountants require in the digital era. By contrast, the authors focus on the broader technology-driven shifts in organizational processes and structures, which vastly change how accounting information is collected, processed and analyzed internally to support managerial decision-making. Hence, the paper focuses on how management accountants can adapt and evolve as their organizations transition toward a digital environment.
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Maria Serena Chiucchi and Marco Montemari
Although several frameworks for measuring and reporting Intellectual Capital (IC) have been developed over the past two decades, their actual use in practice is still limited. The…
Abstract
Purpose
Although several frameworks for measuring and reporting Intellectual Capital (IC) have been developed over the past two decades, their actual use in practice is still limited. The purpose of this paper is to answer the call to analyze IC practices from a critical and performative perspective by investigating how and why IC indicators may end up not being used, thus shedding light on the barriers to their use.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper presents a single in-depth case study and focusses attention on the fragility of the IC indicators as well on the interactions that occur among subjects while transmitting IC indicators.
Findings
The case analysis shows how the different perspectives and expectations that are at stake when subjects engage with IC indicators can play a central role in hindering or enabling their use in practice. Expecting IC indicators to be able to accurately represent and to objectively signal the size and the growth/decline of IC, i.e. to be complete and isomorphic measures, can act as a barrier to their use. The case also shows that scores play a role in hindering the use of the IC indicators; the subjects disputed the scores when they did not confirm their perception of reality, and the lack of completeness and isomorphism of the IC indicators, i.e. their fragility, was the reason put forward to justify the subjects’ refusal to accept the scores and thus, to use these measures.
Research limitations/implications
Although the use of a single case study provides in-depth and rich data, it also limits the generalizability of the observations to other companies. Moreover, the findings obtained may be influenced by the specific IC framework and indicators adopted.
Originality/value
Differently from most previous IC research, this paper focusses attention on the transmission of indicators and ultimately, on their “fate,” and it contributes to the understanding of how and why IC indicators may be produced but not used, thus hindering the diffusion of IC frameworks in practice.
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Christian Nielsen and Marco Montemari
This paper is concerned with identifying the role(s) of the individual employee(s) in the value creation process of three network‐based business models that are analyzed through…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper is concerned with identifying the role(s) of the individual employee(s) in the value creation process of three network‐based business models that are analyzed through case studies. The paper aims to focus on how the relationships between the network‐partners internally and also outside the network affect value creation.
Design/methodology/approach
The study conducted is a case study of three network‐based business models applying a semi‐structured interview approach as the primary source of data.
Findings
The study shows that, together with the terms “integrating” and “enabling” which the traditional literature tends to use, expressions like “building” and “aligning” can be added in order to describe the role of human resources in the value creation process of the network‐based business models. Human resources are found to be important for aligning the value proposition of the network as a whole to the customers' needs and expectations.
Research limitations/implications
The generalizability of the results are restricted by the fact that the network‐based businesses studied have a different set of stakeholder tensions than more traditionally organized.
Practical implications
This paper demonstrates the advantages of network‐based value configurations and indicates how performance measures may be directly derived from value creation maps.
Originality/value
This paper contributes to understanding advantages and drawbacks of network‐based companies and how such types of organization challenge the people within and outside of them.
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Marco Montemari and Christian Nielsen
– The purpose of this paper is to investigate the measurement and the management of the dynamic aspects of intellectual capital through the use of causal mapping.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the measurement and the management of the dynamic aspects of intellectual capital through the use of causal mapping.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper details the methods utilized in a single in-depth case study of a network-based business model.
Findings
The paper illustrates how causal mapping can be used to understand how intellectual capital really works in the specific business context in which it is deployed. Moreover, exploiting the causal map as a platform for extracting a set of indicators can provide information on the length of the lag and the persistence of the effects of managerial actions. In addition, it can signal when and how to refine and update the causal map. The combination of these factors can potentially support the dynamic measurement and management of intellectual capital.
Research limitations/implications
The paper presented has two main limitations. First, the use of a single case study to provide in-depth and rich data limits the generalizability of the observations. Second, the proposed approach has not been implemented in practice. Future research opportunities include interventionist-type case studies that put the causal mapping approach into practice.
Practical implications
The paper highlights the need to build causal maps to enhance the measurement and management of intellectual capital, which is dynamic in nature. As a consequence, this tool can be useful for monitoring the intangibles of companies and networks and to better understand the contribution their intellectual capital makes to the value creation process.
Originality/value
The paper openly questions the measurement of the fluid and dynamic aspects of intellectual capital. It proposes a tool for governing these aspects and it suggests that even the existing intellectual capital measurement systems can improve their usefulness by including these dimensions. So, a shift in intellectual capital measurement is prescribed.
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Marco Giuliani, Maria Serena Chiucchi and Stefano Marasca
This paper has the ambition to enrich the extant research about the interplay between measuring intellectual capital (IC) and managing IC or, more precisely, about the production…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper has the ambition to enrich the extant research about the interplay between measuring intellectual capital (IC) and managing IC or, more precisely, about the production and consumption of IC measurements in practice. Stemming from these considerations, the purpose of this paper is to disentangle the production and consumption processes of IC measurements in practice.
Design/methodology/approach
This study is based on a longitudinal case study is analysed adopting an interventionist approach.
Findings
This study shows the peculiarities regarding the production and consumption of IC measurements, from several perspectives. In particular, it emerges that the reporting of IC can, in some specific contexts, lead to the non-use of IC measurements and to the disappearance of the measured object, IC. What is questionable is whether it is the loss of interest in the IC object that has led to the non-use of the IC measurements or if it is the non-consumption of the measurements and their qualities that has implied the disappearance of the measurement object. In addition, this study sheds a light on the fact that in an IC project the consumption of the measurements can occur not only at the end of the production process, but also (and may be especially) during the production process itself. This consumption can generate different effects such as the identification of new managerial objects, the establishment of new initiatives, the development of a deeper knowledge about how IC works or a change of the sense of some of the existing measurements. In all, the paper underlines the fact that how IC measurements are produced (the process followed and the “actors” involved) affects their actual consumption (or non-consumption).
Research limitations/implications
This paper contributes to the extant literature regarding the production and consumption of IC measurements. Moreover, it contributes to the field of IC “in practice” as it highlights what happens when an IC measurement system is implemented. Finally, the research work can contribute both to the studies regarding IC as an accounting change and to the ones regarding IC as a tool that facilitates organizational change. From the first perspective, the paper highlights how the introduction of IC has fostered long-lasting changes in the management accounting system, albeit circumscribed to the local (departmental) level. From the second perspective, the paper shows how IC may allow the creation of new managerial objects, thus promoting possible new actions. The main limitations of this study are related to the methodology adopted and to its specific pros and cons.
Originality/value
In comparison to previous studies, this one does not focus only on the managerial and organizational aspects related to the design and implementation of IC measurements or on their actual use, but attempts to approach them simultaneously adopting a longitudinal view. Moreover, this study does not adopt a theoretical perspective on how the indicators are designed and consumed but is aimed at investigating how these indicators are produced and consumed “in practice”. Finally, this study focus on the interplay between production and consumption of indicators, i.e. on the use of IC measurements in relation to the peculiarities of their production process.