Design Principles for Leveraging Sustainability in Business Modelling Tools

Sustainability has become increasingly important to business research and practice. Approaches that support fundamental changes in behaviour to act economically, ecologically and socially are required. Modelling and analysing business models can contribute to this, for example by generating new ideas and enabling innovation as well as improving and evaluating current businesses. Although, the interest in business model innovation is booming, and software tools for business model development hold great promise for supporting business model innovation, there is only limited support and guidance for a tool-support that enables a satisfactory consideration of sustainability. Furthermore, there is currently a lack of comprehensive knowledge concerning which features can contribute to this consideration, and how they can be implemented. In this article, we report on the results of design science research (DSR) study that develops a set of design principles for reflecting sustainability in business models, which are refined and evaluated in several cycles. Our findings can support practitioners in (re-)designing tools, selecting and innovating business models, and—for researchers—can serve as a step towards more advances theories regarding software tools for sustainability in business modelling as well as for creating new business model ideas.

[1]  D. Teece.  Business Models, Business Strategy and Innovation , 2010 .

[2]  Jan Recker,et al.  "Modeling with tools is easier, believe me" - The effects of tool functionality on modeling grammar usage beliefs , 2012, Inf. Syst..

[3]  Alexandre Joyce,et al.  The triple layered business model canvas: A tool to design more sustainable business models , 2016 .

[4]  Sandeep Purao,et al.  Making Use of Design Principles , 2016, DESRIST.

[5]  Peter Loos,et al.  Business Models , 2014, Business & Information Systems Engineering.

[6]  S. Evans,et al.  A value mapping tool for sustainable business modelling , 2013 .

[7]  Shirley Gregor,et al.  The Nature of Theory in Information Systems , 2006, MIS Q..

[8]  Martin J. Eppler,et al.  NEW BUSINESS MODELS THROUGH COLLABORATIVE IDEA GENERATION , 2011 .

[9]  Jan Muntermann,et al.  Research Note - Heuristic Theorizing: Proactively Generating Design Theories , 2014, Inf. Syst. Res..

[10]  Alan R. Hevner,et al.  The Three Cycle View of Design Science , 2007, Scand. J. Inf. Syst..

[11]  G. H. Brundtland.  World Commission on environment and development , 1985 .

[12]  Jan vom Brocke,et al.  Green Business Process Management: Towards the Sustainable Enterprise , 2012, BPM 2012.

[13]  Yan Jin,et al.  A study of argumentation-based negotiation in collaborative design , 2010, Artificial Intelligence for Engineering Design, Analysis and Manufacturing.

[14]  Sandeep Purao,et al.  Action Design Research , 2011, MIS Q..

[15]  Florian Lüdeke-Freund,et al.  Relational leadership for strategic sustainability: practices and capabilities to advance the design and assessment of sustainable business models , 2017 .

[16]  Jan Marco Leimeister,et al.  Leveraging virtual business model innovation: a framework for designing business model development tools , 2016, Inf. Syst. J..

[17]  Göran Goldkuhl,et al.  DESIGN THEORIES IN INFORMATION SYSTEMS - A NEED FOR MULTI-GROUNDING , 2004 .

[18]  Kannan Mohan,et al.  Sustainability innovation systems (SIS): IT Investments and Stages of Sustainability Maturity , 2015, AMCIS.

[19]  Jan vom Brocke,et al.  Evaluations in the Science of the Artificial - Reconsidering the Build-Evaluate Pattern in Design Science Research , 2012, DESRIST.

[20]  Florian Lüdeke-Freund,et al.  Sustainable business model research and practice: Emerging field or passing fancy? , 2017 .

[21]  Juhani Iivari,et al.  A Paradigmatic Analysis of Information Systems As a Design Science , 2007, Scand. J. Inf. Syst..

[22]  R. Amit,et al.  Value creation in E‐business , 2001 .

[23]  Leona Chandra Kruse,et al.  Design principles for sensemaking support systems in environmental sustainability transformations , 2018, Eur. J. Inf. Syst..

[24]  Nigel Melville,et al.  Information Systems Innovation for Environmental Sustainability , 2010, MIS Q..

[25]  Viet T. Dao,et al.  From green to sustainability: Information Technology and an integrated sustainability framework , 2011, J. Strateg. Inf. Syst..

[26]  Florian Lüdeke-Freund,et al.  Towards a Conceptual Framework of 'Business Models for Sustainability' , 2010 .

[27]  J. Haidt.  The emotional dog and its rational tail: a social intuitionist approach to moral judgment. , 2001, Psychological review.

[28]  Jan Recker,et al.  Sensemaking and Sustainable Practicing: Functional Affordances of Information Systems in Green Transformations , 2013, MIS Q..

[29]  J. Magretta.  Why business models matter. , 2002, Harvard business review.

[30]  Karl Täuscher,et al.  Business Models for Sustainability From a System Dynamics Perspective , 2016 .

[31]  Shirley Gregor,et al.  Prescriptive Knowledge in IS Research: Conceptualizing Design Principles in Terms of Materiality, Action, and Boundary Conditions , 2015, 2015 48th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences.

[32]  Raine Isaksson,et al.  Measuring sustainable development using process models , 2003 .

[33]  Steve Elliot,et al.  Transdisciplinary Perspectives on Environmental Sustainability: A Resource Base and Framework for IT-Enabled Business Transformation , 2011, MIS Q..

[34]  Antony Upward,et al.  An Ontology for Strongly Sustainable Business Models , 2016 .

[35]  J. Elkington.  Cannibals with Forks , 1997 .

[36]  Yves Pigneur,et al.  Business Model Generation: A handbook for visionaries, game changers and challengers , 2010 .

[37]  B. Wirtz.  Business Model Management , 2011 .

[38]  Dennis Kundisch,et al.  How software can support innovating business models: A taxonomy of functions of business model development tools , 2017, AMCIS.

[39]  Nizar Abdelkafi,et al.  BUSINESS MODEL INNOVATIONS FOR ELECTRIC MOBILITY — WHAT CAN BE LEARNED FROM EXISTING BUSINESS MODEL PATTERNS? , 2013 .

[40]  R. Knackstedt,et al.  Carsharing Geschäftsmodelle – Entwicklung eines bausteinbasierten Modellierungsansatzes , 2017 .

[41]  Juhani Iivari,et al.  Distinguishing and contrasting two strategies for design science research , 2015, Eur. J. Inf. Syst..

[42]  Jaap Gordijn,et al.  Value-based requirements engineering: exploring innovative e-commerce ideas , 2003, Requirements Engineering.

[43]  Matthias Jarke,et al.  Business models for eGovernment services , 2010, Electron. Gov. an Int. J..

[44]  Tom Butler,et al.  Compliance with institutional imperatives on environmental sustainability: Building theory on the role of Green IS , 2011, J. Strateg. Inf. Syst..

[45]  Dennis Kundisch,et al.  Approaches for Business Model Representation: An Overview , 2012, MKWI 2012.

[46]  Jörg Becker,et al.  The Concept of Creativity in the Information Systems Discipline: Past, Present, and Prospects , 2010, Commun. Assoc. Inf. Syst..

[47]  Yves Pigneur,et al.  Clarifying Business Models: Origins, Present, and Future of the Concept , 2005, Commun. Assoc. Inf. Syst..

[48]  Nigel P. Melville,et al.  Spurring impactful research on information systems for environmental sustainability , 2013 .

[49]  Dimitris Papadias,et al.  Computer supported argumentation and collaborative decision making: the HERMES system , 2001, Inf. Syst..

[50]  Ben Shneiderman,et al.  Creativity support tools: accelerating discovery and innovation , 2007, CACM.

[51]  Faouzi Kamoun,et al.  Rethinking the Business Model with RFID , 2008, Commun. Assoc. Inf. Syst..

[52]  Bernhard Thalheim,et al.  Theories in Business and Information Systems Engineering , 2016, Bus. Inf. Syst. Eng..

[53]  Jan Muntermann,et al.  A method for taxonomy development and its application in information systems , 2013, Eur. J. Inf. Syst..

[54]  Alan R. Hevner,et al.  POSITIONING AND PRESENTING DESIGN SCIENCE RESEARCH FOR MAXIMUM IMPACT 1 , 2013 .

[55]  Martin Bichler,et al.  Design science in information systems research , 2006, Wirtschaftsinf..

[56]  Vijay K. Vaishnavi,et al.  Theory Development in Design Science Research: Anatomy of a Research Project , 2008 .

[57]  Tilo Böhmann,et al.  Representing Service Business Models with the Service Business Model Canvas -- The Case of a Mobile Payment Service in the Retail Industry , 2014, 2014 47th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences.

[58]  Thomas Hess,et al.  Forschungsmethoden der Wirtschaftsinformatik , 2007, Wirtschaftsinf..

[59]  Andre Hanelt,et al.  A Taxonomy of Carsharing Business Models , 2016, ICIS.

[60]  H. Chesbrough,et al.  The Role of the Business Model in Capturing Value from Innovation: Evidence from Xerox Corporation's Technology Spin-Off Companies , 2002 .

[61]  R. Amit,et al.  The Business Model: Recent Developments and Future Research , 2011 .

[62]  Florian Lüdeke-Freund,et al.  Business Models for Sustainability , 2016 .

[63]  Thorsten Schoormann,et al.  Sustainability in Business Models - a literature-Review-based Design-Science-Oriented Research Agenda , 2016, ECIS.

[64]  Alexander Maedche,et al.  Exploring Design Principles for Business Model Transformation Tools , 2017, ICIS.

[65]  Jaap Gordijn,et al.  Business Modelling Is Not Process Modelling , 2000, ER.

[66]  Jaap Gordijn,et al.  Comparing Two Business Model Ontologies for Designing e-Business Models and Value Constellations , 2005, Bled eConference.

[67]  Birte Freudenreich,et al.  Sustainability-Oriented Business Model Assessment—A Conceptual Foundation , 2017 .

[68]  C. Cocklin,et al.  Conceptualizing a “Sustainability Business Model” , 2008 .