An intellectual capital view of business model innovation

This chapter addresses the key features of innovation and, in particular, business model innovation. The first part of the paper addresses the general characteristics of innovation and concludes with an appreciation of the many factors or resources in innovation that affect a firm and its efforts to innovate. Particular attention will be given to business model innovation. While business model innovation lacks the near infinite possibilities of research-based innovation, it can be as important to the success of a company. Although the possibilities are relatively limited, there are a number of resources, actors and exogenous effects which must be understood and managed effectively to achieve viable business models. Therefore, a methodology that exposes what is actually happening in firms is required; intellectual capital is a perspective based upon resources and their employment and so has the potential to facilitate this understanding. The second part of the chapter presents a simple review of the main features of intellectual capital and how it may be used as a practical diagnostic. The third and final part of the paper brings the first two parts together and shows how intellectual capital methodologies and their underlying discipline, the resource-based view of the firm, can examine innovation in firms