Developing a unified framework of the business model concept

Abstract

Recent rapid advances in Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) have highlighted the rising importance of the Business Model (BM) concept in the field of Information Systems (IS). Despite agreement on its importance to an organization's success, the concept is still fuzzy and vague, and there is little consensus regarding its compositional facets. Identifying the fundamental concepts, modeling principles, practical functions, and reach of the BM relevant to IS and other business concepts is by no means complete. This paper, following a comprehensive review of the literature, principally employs the content analysis method and utilizes a deductive reasoning approach to provide a hierarchical taxonomy of the BM concepts from which to develop a more comprehensive framework. This framework comprises four fundamental aspects. First, it identifies four primary BM dimensions along with their constituent elements forming a complete ontological structure of the concept. Second, it cohesively organizes the BM modeling principles, that is, guidelines and features. Third, it explains the reach of the concept showing its interactions and intersections with strategy, business processes, and IS so as to place the BM within the world of digital business. Finally, the framework explores three major functions of BMs within digital organizations to shed light on the practical significance of the concept. Hence, this paper links the BM facets in a novel manner offering an intact definition. In doing so, this paper provides a unified conceptual framework for the BM concept that we argue is comprehensive and appropriate to the complex nature of businesses today. This leads to fruitful implications for theory and practice and also enables us to suggest a research agenda using our conceptual framework.

Keywords:

• business model
• conceptual framework
• content analysis
• taxonomy
• information systems

Acknowledgements

We greatly thank Professor Guy Fitzgerald for his valuable comments and suggestions on earlier versions of this paper. We also thank Dr. Pamela Abbott for her useful notes regarding content analysis. Thanks are also due to the Associate Editor (AE) and the two anonymous reviewers for their careful and constructive comments.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Mutaz M Al-Debei

About the authors

Mutaz M. Al-Debei is a Ph.D. candidate and teaching assistant at Brunel University – West London. His research interests include the design and engineering of mobile (cellular) data services and other technological artifacts from business model and design-science perspectives. Al-Debei holds a B.Sc. in Computer Engineering and an MBA degree with IS concentration. He also has IT industry experience having worked in Jordan for the Royal Scientific Society and the Jordan National bank as a network engineer and Database Administrator (DBA), respectively. Thereafter, Al-Debei worked as an IT manager for Arab Radio and Television (ART). He is also a trainer for a number of professional certificates such as OCP for Oracle Developers and DBAs, MCSE, Security+, Network+, CCNA, and Credit Card Frauds. In the academic world, Al-Debei worked as a lecturer of information systems and computing at the University of Jordan and Al-Ahliyya University and now he is working as a teaching assistant at Brunel University.

David Avison

David Avison is Distinguished Professor of Information Systems at ESSEC Business School and visiting professor at Brunel University. He was President of the Association of Information Systems (AIS) 2008–2009. He is joint editor of the Information Systems Journal. So far, over 25 books are to his credit including the fourth edition of the well-used text Information Systems Development: Methodologies, Techniques and Tools (jointly authored with Guy Fitzgerald) and most recently the text Information Systems Project Management (with Reza Torkzedah). He has published a large number of research papers in learned journals, edited texts and conference papers. He was Chair of the International Federation of Information Processing (IFIP) 8.2 group on the impact of IS/IT on organizations and society. He has been program chair, conference chair and general chair of several conferences including ICIS and IFIP. He researches in the area of information systems development and more generally on information systems in their natural organizational setting, in particular using action research and case study, though he has also used a number of other qualitative research approaches.