Value Drivers of e-Commerce Business Models  

The rapid emergence of e-commerce is radically transforming the business landscape. Start-up firms are capturing new opportunities in the electronic market place through innovative business models. Established firms are racing to transform and adapt their old business models to the new environment. Anchored in the entrepreneurship and strategic management literatures, the authors develop the theoretical foundations of the business-model construct, which depicts the ways in which value creating transactions are enabled by a network of firms, suppliers, complementors, and customers. They examine the value creation potential of business models of 59 American and European e-commerce companies that have recently become publicly traded corporations. Grounded in the rich data obtained from these case studies, the authors develop a value driver model that enables an evaluation of the value-creation potential of e-commerce business models along four identified dimensions, namely: novelty, lock-in, complementarities, and efficiency. Their central proposition is that a firm’s business model is an important locus of innovation and a crucial source of value creation for all stakeholders.