The Role of Top Management Personal Characteristics in Business Model Innovation

With increasing competition among companies, innovation has become one of the key factors for the survival of any business and firms require innovation to respond to changes in business environment. Innovation in business model has been defined as a kind of organizational change and implies the concept and use of new types of economic transactions. On the other hand, successful businesses in addition to have an effective business model, are strong in the applying it. Even some famous firms have surpassed their competitors for excellence in technical capabilities. Meanwhile, in previous research on innovation in business models literature, the main focus was always on organizational factors and organizational strategies and individual features of senior executives has been often neglected. This study aims to answer the above mentioned question, with a comprehensive review of the literature, a model regarding to the relationship between senior managers’ demographic characteristics and innovations in business model is developed. This model represents that human resources and social recourses of the managers also has an important role in innovation in business models and ignoring them will lead the firm and its business model to failure.

Keywords:

Business model , business model innovation , personal characteristics , social capital , human capital