A dynamic business model for Turkish techno parks: looking through the lenses of service perspective and stakeholder theory

Unicanvas: Exploring a tool for strategic management

Purpose

This research proposes an adapted version of Business Model Canvas (BMC) as a potential strategic tool for the design of the business model of Higher Education Institutions (HEIs). In the context of fifth-generation universities, the University-Model Canvas (Unicanvas) offers a solution to some limitations of traditional strategic tools. Unicanvas aims to be a critical visual and dynamic tool to address the new challenges faced by universities such as internationalization, digitalization, sustainability, and corporate social responsibility.

Research methods/Approach

We adapt the strategic building blocks, in which some of the BMC blocks have been renamed and an achievement block has been added. We reflect theoretically on the peculiarities of each block in the context of universities to explain the versatility of the tool for designing university business models tailored to different value propositions and for various beneficiaries.

Findings and implications

Unicanvas offers universities the flexibility and dynamism to adapt their different business models to various forms of value creation that arise from their growing number of beneficiaries, missions, and the new trends and challenges they face. We conclude that using this participatory, dynamic, intuitive, and flexible strategic tool will facilitate the holistic design of the business model of these institutions.

Finding the key to the black box of board diversity and firm performance: A mediating effect analysis of technological innovation

A growing body of research has focused on the relationship between board diversity and firm performance. A series of empirical literatures have also examined a significant positive correlation between the two. But these results only demonstrate the relationship between the input of ‘diversity’ and the output of ‘firm performance’. Such research is more of a black box because board diversity must act on certain strategies or decisions to affect firm performance. Some scholars try theoretical analysis with the purpose of opening the black box. In order to verify the relevant theoretical analysis results, this study uses the mediating effect analysis model in the field of psychology, through multiple regression, impulse analysis, variance decomposition and other methods, to thus empirically test the mediating effect of technological innovation in the process of board diversification promoting corporate performance. We found that board diversity can improve firm performance by enhancing the level of technological innovation. Among them, technological innovation has played a complete mediating role in the diversity of board members’ functional and occupational background, and played a partial mediating role in the diversification of directors’ part-time jobs. Technological innovation is a key indicator bridging board diversity and firm performance. This study can explore and explain the inner workings of the significant relationship between board diversity and firm performance, and link research findings on similar phenomena. The research results may make the existing board governance theories more systematic, expand the extension of theoretical research, and provide some empirical research references for academics and practitioners.