Factors influencing the development of innovative business model in the IT industry

ABSTRACT

Many countries have recently witnessed the structure of their economies shift from industrial production to service-sector activities. In particular, this shift has characterised Taiwan’s economy, which nevertheless has grown sluggish in the last few years. In addressing the sluggish environment, Taiwanese companies have been enhancing their business processes with new business models that innovatively satisfy customer demands. In the current study, we explore factors that powerfully support IT firms’ efforts to develop innovative business model. Having invented a STEP² model for this task, we uncovered factors that are highly relevant to service innovation, technology adaptation, environmental transformation, process planning, and people requirements. For the current study, we collected 210 completed online surveys, of which we were able to analyse 195. We found that three factors – environmental transformation, process planning, and people requirements – are particularly useful for firms seeking to enhance the innovativeness of their services. We also found that service innovation affects the development of innovation-oriented business models. Thanks to this study’s STEP² model, our findings should have significant theoretical and practical implications.

KEYWORDS:

• Service design
• innovative business model
• STEP² model
• service industry

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank the anonymous reviewers and the editor for their insightful comments and suggestions. This research also thanks to the graduated student Jia-Rong Tsai, she helped to process data during her studying at school.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This research was partially supported by the Ministry of Science and Technology, Taiwan (MOST) [grant number MOST 104-2410-H-327-013 and 108-2410-H-992-045].

Notes on contributors

Tung-Hsiang Chou

Tung-Hsiang Chou, PhD, is an Associate Professor of Information Management at National Kaohsiung University of Science and Technology (NKUST) in Taiwan. He received his PhD from the Management Information Systems Department at National Chengchi University in 2008. He was also an associate researcher in CHT and worked in the Taiwan telecommunications industry for more than 7 years. He had been the Director of Center of Industry-Academia Collaboration (M.O.E.) and the Duty Dean of Office of Research and Development in NKFUST and NKUST. Dr Chou is now involved in providing e-Business solutions to local and national firms. His field of research is broadly concerned with industry 4.0, internet of things, cloud computing, business process management, business intelligence, big data, and service-oriented architecture. He has published articles in journals such as Information Science, Information & Management, International Journal of Technology Management, Kybernetes, Journal of Organizational and End User Computing, Technology Analysis and Strategic Management, and conference papers on IEEE, ACM, DSI and APDSI. Dr Chou currently serves as a Dean, Office of Educational Programs and Product Promotion.