Business Model Innovation: A Contribution to the Industrial Restructuring of the Norwegian Oil and Gas Industry

The Norwegian oil and gas industry is expected to gradually develop as a future-oriented energy industry on the Norwegian continental shelf as the need for sustainable change has become apparent. This requires an industrial restructuring of the industry where oil and gas companies transition to more sustainable industries including offshore wind, hydrogen, and CCS. Through an exploratory research strategy, this study investigates how business model innovation can contribute to a restructuring of the Norwegian oil and gas industry to comply with Norway’s climate ambitions for 2030 and 2050. The thesis is a case study on the Norwegian oil and gas industry as it is an in-depth inquiry into a phenomenon where we utilize a mixed-methods approach by integrating primary qualitative data with secondary quantitative data collection techniques and analytical procedures. Our findings indicate that the need for change differs from the willingness to change within the industry. The production companies’ willingness to change is currently low as oil and gas production is still highly profitable, while the supplier companies’ willingness is high since it is not profitable for them to expand when the market is decreasing. Furthermore, our findings imply that while there is no perfect business model that can be duplicated from one company to another, the majority of oil and gas companies will need to innovate their customer segments, value propositions, key resources, key partners, and cost structure to succeed in the restructuring. Moreover, our findings indicate that the oil and gas industry landscape significantly influence the need for changing the business model to adapt to external factors. Their business model environment is affected by market forces, industry forces, key trends, and macroeconomic forces through the need for sustainable change, the emergence of new technologies and markets, and changes in market conditions. Lastly, oil and gas companies will face several internal barriers in the process of changing industrial trajectories. This includes particularly challenges with the dominant logic of the company, deficient managerial knowledge, uncertainty and complexity of new business models, and no business model routines or processes. Keywords: Industrial restructuring, Business model innovation, Exploratory researc