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Journal of Management
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The Business Model: Recent Developments and Future Research
Christoph Zott, Raphael Amit and Lorenzo Massa
Journal of Management published online 2 May 2011
DOI: 10.1177/0149206311406265
The online version of this article can be found at:
http://jom.sagepub.com/content/early/2011/04/29/0149206311406265

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Journal of Management
Vol. XX No. X, Month XXXX xx-xx
DOI: 10.1177/0149206311406265
© The Author(s) 2011
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The Business Model: Recent Developments
and Future Research
Christoph Zott
IESE Business School

Raphael Amit
University of Pennsylvania

Lorenzo Massa
IESEBusiness School

This article provides a broad and multifaceted review of the received literature on business
models in which the authors examine the business model concept through multiple subjectmatter lenses. The review reveals that scholars do not agree on what a business model is and
that the literature is developing largely in silos, according to the phenomena of interest of the
respectiveresearchers. However, the authors also found emerging common themes among
scholars of business models. Specifically, (1) the business model is emerging as a new unit of
analysis; (2) business models emphasize a system-level, holistic approach to explaining how
firms “do business”; (3) firm activities play an important role in the various conceptualizations
of business models that have beenproposed; and (4) business models seek to explain how value
is created, not just how it is captured. These emerging themes could serve as catalysts for a more
unified study of business models.
Keywords:

innovation; business model; value creation; value capture; strategy

In recent years, the business model has been the focus of substantial attention from both
academics and practitioners. Since1995, there have been at least 1,177 articles published in
Acknowledgments: We gratefully acknowledge the very helpful comments and suggestions of the editor and of two
anonymous reviewers on earlier drafts of this article. Chris Zott and Lorenzo Massa acknowledge the support of
IESE in sponsoring this research. Raffi Amit is grateful to the Wharton eBusiness Initiative and to the Robert B.Goergen Chair for financial support of this research.
Corresponding author: Christoph Zott, IESE Business School, Av. Pearson 21, 08034 Barcelona, Spain
Email: czott@iese.edu

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Journal of Management / Month XXXX

peer-reviewed academic journals in which the notion of a business model is addressed. The
businessmodel also has been the subject of a growing number of practitioner-oriented studies.
While there has been an explosion in the number of articles published, and an abundance of
conference sessions and panels on the subject of business models, it appears that researchers
(and practitioners) have yet to develop a common and widely accepted language that would
allow researchers who examine thebusiness model construct through different lenses to
draw effectively on the work of others.
In this comprehensive review of the academic literature, we have attempted to explore the origin
of the business model concept and to examine it through multiple disciplinary and subject-matter
lenses. This broad and multifaceted review revealed several insights, including the following:
• Despite the...