Subscription models have become a popular new way for consumers to
do their shopping. This paper presents a taxonomy of the three main
archetypes of subscription models and develops a classification scheme
with type-specific features relevant to their successful management.
An implementation framework offers managers a guideline to introduce
subscription models of their own.
This paper uses a comparative case study of six multichannel retailers' adoption of new cross-channel solutions to explore how top managers empower their middle managers in top-down strategic renewal. Although there is significant research on how top managers maintain control over emergent strategy, we still have a relatively limited understanding of how top-managers empower their mid-levels in deliberate strategic change. Our study produces two empirical findings that somewhat contrast recent research: (i) While current studies recognize the limits to top managers' direct presence at middle levels in dynamic change settings and argue for an active role of middle managers, we find that top managers in firms with relative success in top-driven renewal personally engage with middle managers on a frequent basis, direct and evaluate their change activities through guiding mechanisms, and ensure accessibility to provide feedback to mid-levels. (ii) While prior research shows that middle management empowerment can result from top managers' symbolic invitation to play a broader strategic role, top managers in our successful cases revived hierarchies to maintain an active leadership function in the face of major change which, in turn, became a resource for middle management during deliberate strategic change. In contrast, in less successful cases, top managers refrained from playing an active leadership function, thereby refuting hierarchical relationships. Most fundamentally, we complement the recent focus on symbolic power as a critical means for empowering mid-levels in top-down change by showing how building relational power in the form of functioning hierarchies may be another effective way of fostering middle managers' contributions in deliberate strategic change.
Despite the recognition that many firms operate multiple business models at the same time, little is known about when and how business model diversification may create value. In this study, we develop the construct of business model relatedness and examine its relationship with firm performance. Using a unique panel dataset of multibusiness firms in the retail- and wholesale-trade sectors (1997-2010), we find that the extent to which business model diversification is related increases firm performance. Interestingly, results also show that business model relatedness is more influential in determining firm performance than industry relatedness. This finding suggests that the concept of business model relatedness may be better able to capture the underlying resource relatedness among lines of business than the traditionally used concept of industry relatedness.
Different from previous literature on cross-industry diversification, this study investigates the performance implications of multiunit firms’ related and unrelated diversification behavior within a single industry. In addition, the study contributes to the literature by examining performance implications of firms’ dynamic development of capabilities based on their accumulated diversification experience. Drawing from the resource-based view of diversification, I conceptualize related within-industry diversification based on the resource overlap of operating units and test performance outcomes using a unique dataset of the world’s leading retail firms’ unit (i.e., retail format) diversification behavior over thirteen years (from 1997 to 2009). Results show that profits first decrease at low levels of relatedness and then increase at an increasingly higher level as corporate parents focus stronger on related within-industry diversification. Moreover, I find suggestive evidence that unrelated within-industry diversification has a negative effect on profits. In contrast to profits, both related and unrelated within-industry diversification increase a parent firm’s sales-based market share in the following year. Finally, the study indicates that especially related diversifiers who exceed a distinct (minimum) level of related within-industry diversification are able to develop capabilities over time that lead to superior firm performance. Specifically, the complementary effects of high degrees of related within-industry diversification in combination with longer experience with related diversification enable corporate parents to outperform competition.
