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The Development and Experimental Evaluation of a Focused Business Model Representation

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Abstract

Business models (BM) are the central concept to understand the business logic of an organization. Enterprise modeling contributes to the conceptualization of BMs by providing explicit representations. A proper BM representation helps to increase the understanding and communication about the underlying knowledge for the stakeholders within a company. However, the existing enterprise modeling languages have a different and partial focus on the BM concept due to their various backgrounds. This prevents the large-scale adoption of these representations in practice. Therefore a focused BM viewpoint is developed, which explicitly facilitates the understanding about the underlying BM components. To this end, existing diagrams of the value delivery modeling language were adapted to prescriptions of the physics of notations, which is a normative theory for cognitive effectiveness of diagrammatic representations. The effect on the understanding was evaluated by an experiment with 93 master students. The results confirm the research hypothesis that the new BM viewpoint increases the understanding of the modeled BM components.

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Acknowledgments

This research benefitted from a statistical consult with Ghent University FIRE (Fostering Innovative Research based on Evidence).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, Ghent University, Tweekerkenstraat 2, 9000, Ghent, Belgium

    Ben Roelens &  Geert Poels

Authors
  1. Ben Roelens
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  2. Geert Poels
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Ben Roelens.

Additional information

Accepted after two revisions by the editors of the special focus.

Electronic supplementary material

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Supplementary material 1 (DOCX 1,308 kb)

Appendix: Questionnaire

Appendix: Questionnaire

1.1 Comprehension Questions

  1. 1.

    Which processes are executed by the company? List these processes in the right order below.

  2. 2.

    The role who receives the value proposition with the most components if fulfilled by the following participant:

    1. A.

      Community

    2. B.

      Organization unit

  3. 3.

    The input resources of processes are provided by stores. List the input resources of the process that is connected with the most input stores.

  4. 4.

    List all unique value proposition components provided by the organization unit (s) within the business network.

  5. 5.

    Competences are the result of the coordination of resources during the processes of a company. List those capabilities (i.e., capability offers) of the hospital that are directly supported by a process (i.e., capability method).

1.2 Problem-solving Questions

  1. 1.

    Resources, which are held in Stores, can either be material, immaterial, or human. List those human resources, based on the provided diagrams.

  2. 2.

    The cost structure of a company is the result of acquiring resources, either bought from an external supplier or licensed from an external partner. Based on the provided diagrams, try to come up with cost elements that are economically relevant for the central organization unit.

  3. 3.

    The revenue streams of a company are acquired by a company in return for the provided value proposition. Based on the diagrams, try to come up with revenue streams that are economically relevant for the central organization unit.

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Roelens, B., Poels, G. The Development and Experimental Evaluation of a Focused Business Model Representation. Bus Inf Syst Eng 57, 61–71 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12599-014-0363-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12599-014-0363-z

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