Innovating the innovated: Business model innovation process in sharing economy companies

Business model innovation (BMI) allows firms to rethink the mechanisms of value creation and proposition and capture in order to adapt to the ever-changing environment and increase competitive advantage. Despite already innovative compared to the incumbents, sharing economy platforms also feel the need to continuously innovate their business model (BM) to ensure their survival. However, these platforms are often studied under a static perspective, focusing on the outcome of the innovation rather than on the process underlying it. The purpose of the paper is to unveil the process of BMI in the already innovative BM of sharing economy platforms, focusing on the different degrees this innovation can take place. In so doing, a mixed-methods was applied, clustering a sample of 72 sharing platforms, and completing the results with a qualitative analysis on a subsample of those. What this research demonstrates is that sharing economy platforms do feel the need to innovate their BM just as strongly as incumbents, giving rise to an innovation-in-the-innovation that fills the gap between the process- and the outcome-oriented interpretations of BMI. The four identified clusters shed light on the different forms of BMI that happen in sharing economy platforms.