A Business Model Perspective on Ecosystem Bottlenecks

Research has highlighted how technical bottlenecks or constraints in one technological sub-system can reduce the overall performance of an emerging ecosystem, which can hold back a technology transition. This paper examines the under-theorized role of business models and their (mis-)alignment within an ecosystem as an alternative type of bottleneck beside technical bottlenecks. In the context of electrification of the road transport industry, we find that the necessary realignment of business models may fail to make certain crucial ecosystem nodes sufficiently attractive. Due to high uncertainty or insufficiency of the value capture potential tied to certain value propositions and value creation activities these subcomponents of a nascent ecosystem may remain underdeveloped without any actor stepping in to shoulder the task of delivering these missing pieces. As a result, the ecosystem is impeded to take form and the technology transition do not take place. We term this phenomenon “business model bottlenecks” and contrast this to the more studied phenomenon of technical bottlenecks. Although business model bottlenecks manifest themselves as lack of incentives to take on certain key activities within an emerging ecosystem, we find that solving them requires readjustments of several business models, upstream as well as downstream the bottleneck. These findings contribute to a more nuanced understanding of ecosystem evolution and the interrelation between technology transitions and business model innovation.