Leveraging diverse knowledge sources through proactive behaviour: How companies can use inter‐organizational networks for business model innovation

Why partner? Harnessing value from collaborative sustainable business models to restore coral reefs at scale

Tropical coral reefs provide a wide range of ecosystem services that benefit millions worldwide. However, the current scale of coral reef restoration is a long way from matching the extent needed to protect coral reefs globally, and this implementation gap presents a complex challenge to overcome. Cross-sectoral collaborative sustainable business models (CSBMs) present an interesting opportunity to scale up coral restoration, though this area is yet to be explored in the literature. In this paper, we use the Reef Restoration and Adaptation Program in the Great Barrier Reef as a case study to examine potential collaborators, their roles, and what benefits motivate them to partner for scaling coral restoration. We identified a diverse range of potential collaborators from 10 sectors offering different combinations of physical, human and organisational capitals. Participants described nine roles they could play in such a partnership, and many of these roles relate to ecosystem growth scaling strategies. Benefits that motivate collaboration fall into seven categories: environmental benefit, business opportunity and value, employment opportunity, knowledge and technology, innovation, hope, and reputation. Our findings contribute to designing CSBMs for coral restoration by enriching our understanding of collaborators, value creation and their potential roles in alternative pathways to scale up coral restoration beyond reducing unit cost and increasing funding.

The role of business model innovation in the hospitality industry during the COVID-19 crisis

The hospitality industry worldwide is among the hardest-hit industries from the COVID-19 lockdowns. Initial theoretical and practical observations in the hospitality industry indicate that business model innovation (BMI) might be a solution to recover from and successfully cope with the COVID-19 crisis. Interestingly, some firms in the hospitality industry already started to successfully adapt their business models. This study explores the why and how of these successful recovery attempts through BMI by conducting a multiple case study of six hospitality firms in Austria. We rely on interview data from managers together with one of their main stammgasts for each case, which we triangulate with secondary data for the analysis. Findings show that BMI is applied during and after the crisis to create new revenue streams and secure a higher level of liquidity, with an important role of stammgasts.