Antecedents, Interpretations and Consequences of Strategic Change: A Business Model Perspective

Firms increasingly face challenges caused by changes in their environment like shifts in custom-er preferences, the development of new (digital) technologies, or threats by new, disruptive business models (BM). Firm survival and achieving long-term success often require a firm’s reaction to these challenges. Therefore, firms mostly engage in and initiate strategic change like business model innovation (BMI), a dynamic process that alters strategies, structures, and iden-tities and involves various actors. Due to the inherent complexity of strategic change and BMI, this dissertation seeks to explain the determinants of successful strategic change from a BM perspective. Research lacks a comprehensive understanding of the internal and external drivers of strategic change and BMI. Strategic change and BMI not only involves decision-makers ini-tiating strategic change, but employees and stakeholders are also affected by these changes. As prior research overemphasized decision-makers' role, this dissertation aims to understand the antecedents and how stakeholders interpret and react to initiated strategic change. In the sec-ond chapter (paper 1), this dissertation uses survey-based, quantitative data, and investigates how sustainability affects BMI, and finds that a firm’s sustainability commitment induces stra-tegic competitive behavior (i.e. strategic orientations) that facilitates BMI. This study contrib-utes to explain the business case of sustainability and the internal drivers of BMI. In the third chapter (paper 2), this dissertation investigates external drivers of strategic change and finds that negative media coverage of a firm’s actions influences strategic change initiation. Howev-er, the longitudinal dataset analysis indicates that this effect decreases for firms with an effi-ciency-centered BM design. This study extends prior research on the external antecedents and contingencies of strategic change initiation. By focusing on the interpretation of change, the fourth chapter (paper 3) analyzes how individual employees react to an initiated digital trans-formation. The analysis of survey data reveals that employees that feel comfortable with para-dox demands and situations that are inherent in the changes associated with the digital trans-formation are more likely to accept the digital transformation. Thus, the study contributes to prior research by introducing the concept of paradox to a different research field and explaining variance in employees’ reactions to the digital transformation. In the fifth chapter (paper 4), this dissertation identifies vital strategic choices and their consequences to the BM in social purpose organizations. In a multiple-case study design, this paper explores critical strategic choices that may innovate the organization's BM, leading to potential mission drift. In conclusion, this dis-sertation contributes to the extant literature by gaining new insights on the antecedents of stra-tegic change and BMI and extending the understanding of stakeholders' reactions to these changes by taking a BM perspective.