In today's data-driven era, ubiquitous concern about environmental issues pushes more startups to engage in business model innovation that promotes environmentally friendly technologies. The goal of these startups is to create technology-based products and services that enhance environmental sustainability. In this context, artificial intelligence promises to be a key instrument to create, capture, and deliver value. However, the existing literature lacks a deep understanding of how startups using AI innovate their business models to achieve a positive environmental impact. Therefore, this paper investigates how green technology startups utilize AI from a business model innovation perspective for environmental sustainability. We conduct a qualitative, exploratory multiple-case study using the Eisenhardt methodology, based on interview data analyzed using qualitative content analysis. We derive five predominant manifestations for AI-driven business model innovation and identify archetypical connections between business model dimensions. Further, we establish three overarching archetypical associations among the cases. In doing so, we contribute to theory and practice by providing a deeper account of how green technology startups attempt to maximize their positive environmental impact through AI. The results of this study also highlight how business model innovation driven by AI can support society in securing a more environmentally sustainable future.

There is a lack of understanding about early-stage entrepreneurial actions, as existing research focuses on later stages and overlooks how experience impacts entrepreneurial actions. However, entrepreneurial experience has a pivotal role in shaping entrepreneurial actions, serving as a distinguishing factor within the scope of this study. Therefore, we employ a grounded theory research approach building on 112 in-depth interviews in which we differentiate between novice and experienced entrepreneurs. We analyzed the extensive data set following the methodology of Gioia et al. Our findings include the identification of three dimensions of entrepreneurial activities, namely Entrepreneurial Alignment, Resource Enhancement, and Value Generation, that are relevant for both novice and experienced entrepreneurs. In addition, we are able to identify 27 specific entrepreneurial actions distributed between the three dimensions but differing depending on whether the entrepreneur is a novice or experienced. Examining these results, we outlined differences and commonalities in the activities of the two groups: novice entrepreneurs follow a sequential, unconnected, and perfectionist-driven process, while experienced entrepreneurs adopt a parallel, interconnected, and iterative process across the three dimensions. Practitioners and researchers can benefit from the study’s results for entrepreneurship education and resource theories in the early-stage venture creation.

This publication-based dissertation, comprising four unique research papers published in peer-reviewed journals, contributes to innovation management theory and explores how organizations can maximize the value of innovations in the new digital normal. It draws insights from 31 cases, 86 semi-structured interviews, and 804 survey participants (excluding pilot studies), employing a diverse range of qualita-tive and quantitative methodologies. The dissertation investigates how organizations can create and cap-ture value from innovations, focusing on contingent and contextual dimensions, capabilities, and leader-ship styles. As a result, it makes four key theoretical contributions. First, it proposes that innovation performance is equifinal but contingent on the configurational approach for each organization (e.g., combinatorial recipe). Alignment between innovation approaches and performance strategies is essen-tial to gain a competitive advantage. Second, it underscores the vital role of middle managers as the crucial link between top management and employees. This middle-up-down management approach combines distinct leadership and communication capabilities to integrate innovations (e.g., innovative work behaviors, digital technologies) into daily working routines, thus facilitating innovation routiniza-tion (e.g., effective innovation implementation). Third, organizations that possess adequate higher-order business model and process efficiency dynamic capabilities evaluate various dimensions (e.g., value, individual, technological, organizational) in their internal and external contextual periphery to deter-mine their action potential. This enables them to assess, reconfigure, and integrate value creation oppor-tunities into their operational capabilities (e.g., business model, processes), leading to improved per-formance when digitally transforming. Fourth, this dissertation conceptualizes the multidimensional (e.g., individual, team, organizational) digital leadership phenomenon, grounding it in the domain of (strategic) leadership theories. Digital leaders constantly oscillate between leading themselves and oth-ers and leading their organizations to create innovative work environments that foster performance. The combined findings of the dissertation call for novel market approaches and adjusted forms of leadership for organizations to thrive in the new digital business landscape. Avenues for further research to enrich the current academic discourse are also presented. If organizations are to enhance their performance (e.g., increase the likelihood of capturing value from their innovations, or deriving a competitive ad-vantage), understanding the underlying mechanisms outlined in this dissertation should help organiza-tions in this endeavor.

This study draws on dynamic capabilities to investigate ecosystem innovation, exploring the interplay between regulation and digitalization in shaping market landscapes. It particularly focuses on innovations in healthcare, examining how dynamic capabilities in ecosystems foster transformative solutions. The healthcare ecosystem is facing the challenge of adapting and innovating amidst strict regulations and diverse stakeholders. This presents a unique industrial landscape, with the need to consider innovations in the healthcare sector as a separate case. The existing literature emphasizes that dynamic capabilities, especially sensing, seizing, and transforming, are crucial for ecosystem players to effectively orchestrate long-term innovations. However, the specific role of these capabilities in addressing the unique challenges posed by regulation and diverse stakeholders in the healthcare sector remains largely unexplored. There is a lack of concrete insights into how these capabilities contribute to fostering innovations in the healthcare ecosystem. This study focuses on the German healthcare ecosystem as it tackles with the profound challenge of adapting and innovating within the constraints of stringent regulations and a diverse stakeholder landscape. The study aligns with the issuance of the Hospital Future Act which compels the entire healthcare ecosystem in Germany to undergo comprehensive digitization. By investigating this evolving landscape, this research aims to contribute valuable knowledge on the intersection of ecosystem innovation and dynamic capabilities, leveraging the German healthcare case as a timely and insightful example. To address the research question of how dynamic capabilities in innovation ecosystems foster transformative solutions, we adopt an embedded case study design, focusing on the German healthcare ecosystem. Applying the inductive approach for concept development this research paper builds on qualitative data collected through interviews from diverse actors in the German healthcare sector. This study offers a targeted framework to reveal the unique ecosystem innovation capabilities needed in the healthcare system. It specifically examines the convergence of regulatory structures and multiple stakeholders in creating innovative solutions for the healthcare sector. These findings not only offer valuable implications for scholars and practitioners navigating the evolving landscape of healthcare innovation, but also enhance the broader understanding of dynamic capabilities in innovation ecosystems.

In the context of an ever-evolving and unpredictable external environment, the concept of resilience has garnered significant attention, particularly within family firms. Family firms, known for their unique challenges, are in dire need of strategies to enhance their resilience. While the importance of resilience is widely recognized, there remains a conspicuous gap in the understanding of how family firms react and adapt to a series of global economic adversities over time, such as COVID or the financial crisis. By examining the strategic patterns of family firms across different periods of adversity, the present study fills this critical gap, offering insights into the dynamic process of resilience-building in family firms. The methodological approach employs an in-depth multiple-case study of eight German family firms from different industries, with a varying size, ownership structure and family involvement. It combines semi-structured interviews, participant observations, and a thorough review of secondary materials, such as annual reports, newspaper articles, dossiers and site visits, for further triangulation of the data. This methodology not only ensures scientific rigor and validity of the findings, but it also provides a groundbreaking perspective on the resilience-building mechanisms employed by a diverse sample of family firms. Central to the findings are six aggregate dimensions entailing detailed strategic patterns identified as critical to the resilience-building of family firms. These dimensions are a continuous reflection on family values and dynamics, long-term business promises, the augmentation of social capital, proactive business development, efficacious crisis management, and an enhanced security mindset, which are then integrated in an overarching framework. For each strategic pattern, examples and case excerpts are presented that vividly illustrate their operating mechanisms, offering a granular view of how these strategies collectively contribute to the resilience of these firms. While immediate and short-term crisis response remains a crucial step to counter adversities, several strategic patterns in resilient family firms draw upon long-term oriented planning, relation management and mutual trust between family and businesses’ ecosystem. The theoretical and practical implications of the present study are profound. Theoretically, it contributes to the family firm resilience literature by proposing a new theoretical framework and appertaining patterns that capture the dynamic nature of resilience-building in family firms. Practically, it offers actionable insights for family business owners, managers, and policymakers, guiding them in the development and implementation of resilience strategies.

In today’s competitive and volatile markets, organizations need to be ambidextrous to succeed, that is, they need to explore and exploit simultaneously. In extant literature, structural ambidexterity as a specific form of ambidexterity has received immense attention. The general idea of this approach is to separate exploration and exploitation into distinct organizational units, meaning that the two orientations are differentiated using organizational structure. More recently, however, researchers began to acknowledge that integration – as a counterpart to differentiation – at the unit level might represent an important and so far, often neglected success factor for organizations pursuing ambidexterity, especially when it comes to knowledge transfer, coordination and information flow between units. Drawing on Social Capital Theory and literature on knowledge exchange across units and teams, we investigate the role of boundary-spanning between explorative and exploitative units that are structurally separated with regard to their relation to product innovation performance of subsequent organizations. Our aim is to provide concrete quantitative evidence and a detailed picture regarding the effects that boundary-spanning (i.e., activities to build “bridges” across organizational boundaries) between explorative and exploitative units have on the product innovation performance (i.e., share of turnover with new-to-firm and new-to-market product innovations as well as innovation speed as a mediator). In addition to testing whether boundary-spanning activities between explorative and exploitative units are positively related to product innovation performance, we also test whether this relationship is subject to a too-much-of-a-good-thing effect, which would be reflected in a curvilinear relationship between boundary-spanning and innovation performance measures, forming an inverted U-shape function. Using data from Swiss manufacturing companies collected in the European Manufacturing Survey (EMS) 2018, we conduct a quantitative analysis using both partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS SEM) as well as necessary condition analysis (NCA), as the two approaches offer complementary strengths and insights. Our analyses are based on a sample of n=479 complete cases in which structural ambidexterity (or blended forms of structural ambidexterity) were present. The results of our study not only show that boundary-spanning between explorative and exploitative units has a positive effect on product innovation performance (i.e., share of turnover with i) new-to-firm products and ii) new-to-market products), but also that boundary-spanning between explorative and exploitative units is indeed a necessary condition for high product innovation performance with regard to both new-to-firm products (i.e., product innovation in general) as well as new-to-market products (i.e., more radical product innovation). In addition, our results show that boundary-spanning between explorative and exploitative units is negatively related to innovation speed, meaning that more boundary-spanning could in fact, and contrary to our expectation, lead to slower product innovation processes. This effect is, however, only marginally significant. Nevertheless, this refutes the hypothesis that bridging ties between separated explorative and exploitative units not only lead to better results, but also to faster outcomes. Instead, our results indicate that bridging ties can indeed lead to better (i.e., more successful in terms of share of turnover), but not to faster product innovation in ambidextrous organizations. What is particularly interesting here, however, is the fact that innovation speed – also in the opposite direction of our hypotheses – is negatively associated with product innovation performance. These results, hence, demonstrate that innovation speed is not necessarily a good thing and that product innovation processes should not be rushed, but instead, must be managed with due care and diligence. In summary, our results lend support to the claim that boundary-spanning activities between explorative and exploitative units are a mandatory prerequisite (i.e., a must-have) for ambidextrous organizations wanting to achieve a high product innovation performance. The study provides in-depth, empirical insights into the effects that boundary-spanning activities between explorative and exploitative units have on the product innovation performance of organizations pursuing structural ambidexterity or blended forms of structural ambidexterity. These insights are highly relevant for researchers and practitioners alike, as there is currently not enough quantitative evidence on how boundary-spanning activities as well as the thereby established relational or bridging ties, connectedness, and social capital between explorative and exploitative units influence the outcomes in structurally ambidextrous organizations. We extend the current body of knowledge regarding this important question and provide a detailed, multifaceted quantitative analysis using different, complementary methods.

The imperative shifts towards Digitalization and Sustainability poses a dual challenge for established companies. This is especially relevant for so-called High-Reliability Organizations (HROs) functioning in critical sectors such as energy and healthcare. These organizations emphasize flawless operation within high-risk settings and are characterized by their complex business models that focus on enhanced security and efficiency. Faced with new market pressures and demanding regulations HROs must transform their foundational operating and business models to address emerging chances and risks for digitalization and sustainability, while maintaining their focus on security and efficiency. Growing research regards both sustainable and digital transformations for established companies. However, literature how specifically HROs address either of these transformation challenges is still limited and highly fragmented, and almost none considers the dual challenge of both transformations at the same time. To address this gap in research, this study investigates and synthesizes antecedents, barriers, drivers, and outcomes of digital and sustainable transformations in HROs from existing literature, compares them for possible reciprocal effects and combines the findings to conceptualize a unified framework for a “Twin Transformation” (TT) in HROs. Employing a systematic literature review (SLR), this study integrates two usually distinct research streams: Digital and Sustainable Transformation in HROs. By systematically sampling, analyzing and structuring literature from both domains, the study identifies overlapping and unique organizational factors influencing TT to compare and combine common factors across the two transformations. The SLR methodology facilitates a comprehensive, transparent, and replicable integration of the findings, further supported by a qualitative analysis based on transparent data structures. The study identifies the antecedents, drivers/barriers, and outcomes for both digital and sustainable transformation in HROs. Subsequently, the comparison and combination of the identified organizational factors allows to propose a conceptual framework for Twin Transformation in HROs with specified common and differentiated antecedents, drivers/barriers, and outcomes. By offering a holistic organizational view of TT, this paper guides HROs in navigating the complexities of the Digital and Sustainability “Twin Transformation”. It emphasizes specific common antecedents, drivers/barriers, and outcomes to consider when addressing this dual challenge, as well as differentiated organizational factors that are critical for either one of the transformations. That way, the resulting conceptual framework lays out a possible path for HROs and potentially also other organizations and companies to follow in achieving digitized and sustainable operation and business models. This study presents a novel SLR that bridges the gap between Digital and Sustainability Transformation research with a specific focus on HROs. By proposing a comprehensive empirical framework for TT, it contributes to the academic discourse by addressing the fragmented literature and setting a foundation for future research on combined digital and sustainable transformations, specifically within HROs.

Human behavior is a complex interplay of various factors, with sociocultural backgrounds exerting significant influence on individual attitudes. Certain factors can lead to societal marginalization or the classification of individuals into an “outsider” status. Because of the challenging context, entrepreneurs often act as societal underdogs, challenging prevailing norms and fostering innovation. But the (starting) prerequisites are not the same and therefore – based on the sociocultural background – outsidership also exists among entrepreneurial groups. While a growing body of research has focused on poverty and economic marginalization in entrepreneurship, there remains a dearth of understanding regarding the non-economic dimensions of outsider status. Thus, this study aims to explore the intersection of marginalization and education, recognizing education as a pivotal sociocultural factor shaping entrepreneurial behavior. Drawing on qualitative data gathered through 42 semi-structured interviews with marginalized entrepreneurs, we investigate how individuals lacking formal or economic education navigate entrepreneurial ventures. Our findings highlight several factors that contribute to marginalization, including limited business knowledge, lack of theoretical skills, and restricted access to professional networks. Education-related marginalized entrepreneurs employ various coping mechanisms such as self-directed learning, experiential learning, and active seeking of external support. Despite their diverse backgrounds, these individuals exhibit similarities in their behavioral patterns across various dimensions of the entrepreneurial process. These include opportunity identification, innovation, problem-solving, resource management, leadership, and risk management. Through our analysis, we unveil nuanced insights into the ways in which educational marginalization influences entrepreneurial dynamics. Our results shed light on common motivations and attributes among marginalized entrepreneurs, demonstrating heightened engagement within specific dimensions of the entrepreneurial process. At the same time, risk management is handled in a moderate way with prepared and relatively soft fallback options. Additionally, we identify dualistic patterns in behavior, which evolve over time, partly because of increasing educational attainment or are manifested in the compartmentalization of professional and personal domains. By contributing to the nascent literature on marginalized entrepreneurship with a newly established framework, our study expands scholarly understanding and points toward avenues for future research to delve deeper into the intricate dynamics of marginalization and entrepreneurial behavior. It therefore not only follows multiple calls for qualitative investigations in this field but also generates practice-relevant insights to better understand entrepreneurial behavior by focusing on the human influence of sociocultural backgrounds.

The major topics of sustainability and digitalization force small businesses to shift their established business models (BMs) towards digital and sustainable BMs. Due to their unique resource constraints, small businesses face difficulties within this transition process. To study this phenomenon, BMs have comprised a prominent research focus, and related scholarly discussions remain ongoing. A central research stream in these academic discussions is the transition towards digital BMs. Digitalization represents a significant trend and a crucial factor for the success and survival of small businesses. Digital transformation (DT) describes incremental and radical changes of a BM toward digital value proposition, digital value creation and delivery, and digital value capture. Although digitalization and DT have generated interest among scholars, a small business focus is still nascent in the literature. In addition to digitalization, sustainability has become a paramount topic in business research. Many scholars consider the necessity for businesses to shift towards sustainable and inclusive business models crucial for corporate success and societal well-being. The transformation toward a sustainable BM includes technological, organizational, and cultural aspects to tackle environmental and social challenges. While scholars have been extensively studying sustainability and the transformation to sustainable businesses in larger corporations, there remains a lack of studies focusing on the drivers and challenges unique to small businesses. Twin transition combines sustainability and digitalization in a concurrent transition toward sustainable and digital BMs. While some authors have begun to focus on sustainable and digital transformation and connecting digital transformation processes to environmental, economic, and social sustainability, an apparent concentration of scholars on the phenomena for the heterogeneous group of small businesses has yet to form. Barriers and drivers either for sustainable transition or for digital transition are well-established but are still nascent for twin transition. The arising research question is as follows: What are the internal and external antecedents for the transition towards digital and sustainable business models of small businesses? To answer this research question, a multi-staged research approach was chosen. As a first step, the study conducts a systematic literature review (SLR) based on articles in high-quality business and management journals. Small-business-specific barriers and drivers for either digital transformation or sustainable transformation were derived. In a second step a qualitative analysis of semi-structured interviews was utilized. The interviews were conducted with practitioners from various hierarchical levels across German and Austrian small businesses in several industries. The interview data were used to validate the derived internal and external factors and extract small-business-specific barriers and drivers for twin transition. Interview transcripts were coded manually, and barriers and drivers were clustered into aggregated dimensions using the Gioia methodology. This work's main contribution is deriving small-businesses-specific barriers and drivers for twin transition. Furthermore, the categories of these internal and external antecedents are structured within a holistic framework. The barriers and drivers provide guidance for entrepreneurs and managers of small businesses to complete the twin transition pathway successfully. The presented study provides a comprehensive overview of internal and external drivers and barriers of twin transition with a clear focus on small businesses.

This publication-based dissertation covers research on service innovation and service productivity over eight chapters. The first and second chapter provide an introduction into service innovation and service productivity as key elements of a firm’s ability to gain competitive advantages. The third chapter is a systematic literature review that structures research published on service productivity relying on 190 articles. The research offers a new conceptualization of service productivity by emphasizing it as an open and customer-inclusive process that transcends the service producer–customer divide. The fourth chapter is a meta-analysis which analyzes the factors influencing service productivity by relying on 77 articles, 81 independent samples, with a cumulative sample size of 30,238 participants. The study explicates that productivity measurements should equally account for service quality and cost aspects to either reconcile the conflicts or leverage synergies between the two and thus determine the service productivity effect more accurately. The fifth chapter is a quantitative empirical paper (N=554) that explains how individual political behavior affects new service development at the customer interface. The study shows that political behavior has a positive impact on extra-role behavior, thereby allowing to gain deeper insights into customers’ needs, indicating that political behavior is not an exclusively dysfunctional phenomenon. The sixth chapter is a multiple case study (based on 27 cases) that investigates how service innovation’s core concepts must be designed to be reinforcing and mutually supportive with the firm’s service productivity strategy. The study shows that firms are more likely to gain competitive advantages if they link multiple innovation configurations that achieve fit with the firms’ productivity strategy. The seventh chapter is a mixed empirical study that combines qualitative interview data (42 semi-structured interviews) with quantitative questionnaire data (n =125) to shed light on the underlying mechanisms that enhance innovation implementation effectiveness. The study’s results emphasize that achieving high and consistent use of innovations requires organizations to focus on organizational members and their individual characteristics, rather than on organizational design. The eight chapter summarizes the contributions of this dissertation as well as its limitations and potential directions for further research.