Business model innovation in the sharing economy: the case of digital platform SMEs

Purpose: The Digital Platform Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (DPSMEs) were introduced to the world as a disruptive innovation with a new Business Model Innovation (BMI). Yet, this innovation process is still unknown in literature. This study aims to employ two levels of analysis to understand DPSMEs' BMI: micro (Firm) and macro (national). First, from the micro-level, it focuses on investigating the dynamic process of BMI in DPSMEs. Second, in respect of the macro-level, it explores the impact of the factors in Business Ecosystem (BE) on BMI. Finally, it integrates these two levels to investigate the Scalable Business Model (scalability to international markets).

Methodology: This study has adopted a qualitative approach, specifically a multiple in-depth case study, to understand the complexity and contemporary nature of six DPSMEs' BMI operating in Jordan and the United Arab Emirates, and contribute to the existing theories and perspectives such as activity system, dynamic capabilities, ecosystem, and Network-based International Theory (NBIT) as well as the literature on Sharing Economy (SE) Platform. The researcher has adopted the realist paradigm and deductive-inductive reasoning to benefit from the existing theories to predict critical issues related to BMI of DPSMEs. It utilises both primary (32 semi-structured interviews) and secondary (69 documents) data collection methods. Both the Eisenhardt method and Gioia were adopted for qualitative data analysis.

Key contributions and implications: This study makes three theoretical contributions. First, it contributes to the BMI literature by integrating and extending the activity system and dynamic capabilities perspectives to the SE context in order to develop the 3Ts model that explains how DPSMEs innovate their BMs in developing economies by Triggering, Theming, and Transforming their BMs. Second, it contributes to the SE ecosystem and BMI literature by integrating and extending the ecosystem perspective and network theory to develop the business ecosystem of the DPSMEs model that explains how the factors in the business ecosystem affect the innovation process of DPSMEs' BMs. Finally, it contributes to filling the theoretical gap between SE and the International Business theories by extending NBIT and integrating it with the digital activity system and BE of DPSMEs (developed by the researcher) to develop the Pre-scaling, Scaling and Post-scaling (PSP) model that explains the scaling up of DPSMEs' BMs process in developing economies by building knowledge and relations oriented networks, Local-by-Local Scaling and Post-Network

Scaling.