Affecting corporate image through sustainable business model innovation

Abstract. The main goal of this research was to find out how a sustainable business model innovation can affect corporate image. Additional goals of this research were to also find out if consumer trust is needed for a sustainable business model innovation to affect corporate image, and if customer service linked to the innovation can affect it as well. Based on the previous research, this research proposed corporate image can be affected through corporate social responsibility actions, with a focus on mainly philanthropical actions, and customer service. The research was conducted as qualitative research, and as a case study. The chosen case company was Fiskars Group, and the sustainable business model innovation was Iittala’s Vintage Service. The data was gathered through an online questionnaire, where students at university of Oulu answered short text answers and multiple-choice questions. The responders were asked what has affected their image of Fiskars Group, if finding out about the Vintage Service had any effects on said image, and if they had used the Vintage Service. The main findings of this research are that consumer trust is needed for the sustainable business model innovation to affect corporate image, and customer service experiences linked to the innovation can affect corporate image as well. It was discovered that without consumer trust, the sustainable business model innovation either does not affect corporate image at all, or the effects are negative. The research also found that without consumer trust, the consumers are more likely to question the motives behind the sustainable business model innovation, and even suspect greenwashing. The results cannot be generalized due to the small sample of the research. However, to gain results that can be generalized, this research could be recreated with a bigger sample, or with other sustainable business model innovations. Deeper understanding of how a sustainable business model innovation can affect corporate image can also be discovered through interviews, or by having a bigger sample of answers in a questionnaire