Practices for Open Business Model Innovation -An Innomediaries Perspective

Innovative business models generate competitive advantage and are becoming more important than innovative products or processes. Despite its importance, firms continuously fail to innovate business models. Reasons are inhibiting structures, cultures and missing resources or capabilities. Integrating external stakeholders can help to overcome these barriers. Turning to innovation intermediaries, so-called "Innomediaries" support firms. Innomediaries specialize on the integration of suppliers, customers, or inventive partners (startups or universities) into innovation projects. With three in-depth case studies, we provide an actionable framework for integrating external stakeholders into business model innovation. It guides firms when, with whom, and how they can integrate external stakeholders to reduce risks and accelerate the creation of innovations. We shed light on the understudied intersection of open innovation and business model innovations and the linking role of innomediaries. Future research can extend the role of IT, protection against opportunistic behavior, and innomediaries as service platforms in innovation ecosystems.