Emerging Technologies as Enabler of Sustainable Business Model

Innovation: Evidence from Space Tech New Ventures

Jacopo Manotti, Antonio Ghezzi, Andrea Rangone and Raffaello Balocco

Politecnico di Milano, Department of Management, Economics and Industrial Engineering,

Via Lambruschini 4B, 20156 Milan, Italy

Keywords: Business Model Innovation, Space Technologies, Emerging Technology, Sustainable Development Goals,

Space Economy, Business Model, Lean Startup.

Abstract: The growing humanitarian and environmental challenges our planet and society are facing today made the

United Nations ratify the so-called 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, which encapsulates 17

Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) with the aim of promoting social, environmental, and economic

objectives. For commercial companies, embarking into sustainability is not an easy task, because of different

tensions between profit and impact that make it difficult to fully align the commercial activities with the

sustainability ones within the company’s business model. By mean of a multiple-case study analyzing 11

startups in the New Space Economy domain, this research sheds light on the use of the emerging satellite

technology as enabler of sustainable business model innovation, adopting a technology-perspective in the

mitigation of the so-called transaction obstacles to sustainability, making it clear how emerging technologies’

features may represent a solution to embed SDGs in firms’ business model.

1 INTRODUCTION

In 2015 the United Nations ratified the so-called 2030

Agenda for Sustainable Development, encapsulating

17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) aiming at

promoting social, environmental, and economic

objectives. The SDGs has been welcomed on a global

scale as a framework to be adopted by any

organization pursuing sustainability (Saito et al.,

2017; Mio et al., 2020). Anyway, when it comes to

commercial companies, embarking into sustainability

is not an easy task, because of different tensions

between profit and impact that make it difficult to

fully align the commercial activities with the

sustainability ones within the company’s business

model (BM) – intended as the firm’s realized strategy

in terms of value creation, delivery, and capture

mechanisms (Teece, 2010). In this context,

technology may play a fundamental role in

dampening these contrasts for both startups and well-

established companies (Foss and Saebi, 2017). More

specifically, new space technologies are drawing

attention of researchers and practitioners as an

unconventional though powerful means to foster the

attainment of SDGs (Balogh et al., 2018): however,

the relationship between these unconventional

sources of innovation and the process of sustainable

business model innovation is yet to be explored. An

exploratory multiple case study was performed on

eleven companies where new space technologies

constituted the driver of sustainable business model

innovation, with a specific focus on how new space

technologies enable to embed SDGs in the business

model components. Our study proposes a model of

new space technologies levers for sustainable

business model innovation. Our findings reveal that

new space technologies’ features – namely

Performance, Ubiquity, and Convenience – can act as

levers for the innovation of the different business

model value mechanisms. Such innovation may

become core for overcoming the transaction obstacles

(i.e., Unwillingness to Pay, Difficulty of Access,

Inability to Pay) generally faced by for-profit

companies pursuing sustainable objectives, thus

allowing them to embed SDGs in their business

model without giving up profit. The contribution of

our study is two-fold. First, it aims at filling the

theoretical gap between business model innovation

for sustainability and emerging technologies. To this

extent, we shed light on the possibility to go beyond

the consideration of technology diffusion features,

showing how the their inner characteristics may

546

Manotti, J., Ghezzi, A., Rangone, A. and Balocco, R.

Emerging Technologies as Enabler of Sustainable Business Model Innovation: Evidence from Space Tech New Ventures.

DOI: 10.5220/0011828300003467

In Proceedings of the 25th International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems (ICEIS 2023) - Volume 2, pages 546-552

ISBN: 978-989-758-648-4; ISSN: 2184-4992

 2023 by SCITEPRESS – Science and Technology Publications, Lda. Under CC license (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)

enable sustainable business model innovation.

Second, the study adopts a technology-perspective

towards sustainability, highlighting the association

between the transaction obstacles to sustainability

and the technology features that may represent a

solution to mitigate them, allowing firms which adopt

such technology to implement a sustainable business

model innovation.

2 THEORETICAL

BACKGROUND

In the last two decades, scholars have started to

introduce the business model (BM) as a substitute

concept for strategy-execution, given its boundary-

spanning and holistic nature which at the same time

privileges the decision-maker perspective (Lanzolla

and Markides, 2020; Bigelow and Barney, 2020).

Defined as the system of activities that a focal firm

and its core partners perform in order to create and

capture value, it has been highlighted how it may

serve as “locus of innovation” itself, meaning a

potential source of competitive advantage beyond the

most traditional product and process innovation, thus

coining the term “business model innovation” (BMI)

(Amit and Zott, 2020). Defined as the “non-trivial”

modification of one or more activities performed by

the firm, as well as the potential mechanisms linking

them, Foss and Saebi (2017) point out how relevant

streams of research to further develop are represented

by the use of technologies to enable BMI, as

potentially with a sustainable-oriented purpose.

Within literature, a sustainable business model

innovation is defined as introduction of sustainable

value inside the business model by incorporating

economic, social or environmental benefits in its

components (Geissdoerfer et al., 2018; Ueda et al.,

2009; Evans et al., 2017; Shakeel et al., 2020). Santos

and colleagues (2015) identified three transaction

obstacles preventing sustainable projects to come to

light, related to low perception of value embedded in

the product or service offered, which leads to the

unwillingness to pay of customers, especially when

targeting individuals feeling the day-to-day pressure

of poverty or those who are excluded and

disadvantaged (Nicholls & Dees, 2015). A second

problem found is that sustainable products and

services are over expensive (Davies & Chambers,

2018), hence potential customers who would greatly

benefit from them (Seelos & Mair, 2005), cannot

afford their prices, due to their inability to pay (Santos

et al., 2015). Finally, the difficulty of access

represents a third major obstacle (Santos et al., 2015)

since the attention must shift from targeting

mainstream customers towards targeting niches of

sustainable customers (Davies & Chambers, 2018)

who usually live in remote or rural villages that are

difficult to reach due to their location (Santos et al.,

2015).

Despite the claimed potential in the role of

technology as potential enabler of sustainability, very

few papers open-up the inner characteristics of the

technology itself, meaning looking at the inner

characteristics enabling the creation of the

innovation, taking instead a more high-level

perspective. From the development of the Internet,

new technologies are constantly emerging and taking

their space in the firms’ daily activities, possibly

representing significant game-changers which

deserve the necessity to be finer explored (Rotolo et

al., 2015). Very often, new ventures take the role of

explorer of new and emerging technologies to create

innovative business models (Foss and Saebi, 2017).

3 METHODOLOGY

The theoretical background at the intersection of

business model innovation, emerging technologies

and sustainability, led us to formulate the following

research objective: how do new ventures may

leverage the inner characteristics of an emerging

technology as vehicle to achieve sustainable business

model innovation?

Since the topic of sustainable development has not

yet been studied by researchers when referring to

space technologies and firms’ business model, we

proceed by applying a qualitative approach (Gartner

& Birley, 2002). In particular, the decision was to

conduct an exploratory multiple case study (Yin,

1984; Eisenhardt, 1989; Eisenhardt & Graebner,

2007), which suits research questions responding to a

“why” or “how”, when the investigator does not have

control over events and when the focus is on

contemporary events (Yin, 1984) – all characteristics

complying to our research objective. In particular, a

multiple case study approach has been chosen

because the literature has recognized that it is more

robust compared to a single one (Yin, 1984), and it

allows to obtain generalized results, enabling

comparisons among different manifestations of the

phenomenon (Meredith, 1998; Eisenhardt &

Graebner, 2007).

Emerging Technologies as Enabler of Sustainable Business Model Innovation: Evidence from Space Tech New Ventures

547

3.1 Case Sampling

One of the most recent emerged technologies is

represented by satellite technology (Pelton, 2019),

recognized as potential drivers o foster sustainable

growth for successfully implementing the 2030

Agenda (Balogh et al., 2017; Pelton, 2019). This

opportunity is witnessed by more and more startups, ,

which see in space a possible area of business, driving

the so-called “New Space” phenomenon (Dos Santos

Paulino, 2020; Denis et al., 2020).

The selection have leveraged two main sources:

an original database of space-based startups

containing more than 500 companies, and LinkedIn

through which it has been possible to attend different

online events and get in contact with some of these

ventures. Firstly, following Balogh et al. (2017)’s

classification on how space technologies can support

the 2030 Agenda, it was chosen to consider only

startups with a contribution to the SDGs achievement.

Second, following the definition of emerging

technology proposed by Rotolo et al. (2015), we

select satellite technologies in the fields of

communication and earth observation. Particularly,

the authors stated that to be considered “emerging” a

technology must respect five key attributes: novelty,

relatively fast growth, coherence, prominent impact,

uncertainty, and ambiguity. It has been noticed that,

while novelty, relatively fast growth and coherence

are fully satisfied by all types of space technologies,

when coming to the radical novelty and prominent

impact characteristics communication and earth

observation satellites are more representative than

navigation systems. Indeed, the former allow to

provide services that are unique and with an

increasing value and have a high impact in terms of

socio-economic benefits and number of industries

affected. In contrast, the latter are more redundant and

do not enable new and innovative applications

(Pelton, 2019). Consequently, only startups

leveraging either Earth observation or

communication satellites were included in the final

sample. At the end of the three main steps, a final

skimming was performed in order to ensure the

heterogeneity dimension, hence for each startup sub-

criteria like the headquarter site, kinds of SDGs

addressed, founding year and maturity stage (linked

to the total financing raised) were considered. An

overview of the cases and the informants’ role is

provided in Table 1.

3.2 Data Collection and Analysis

This research started with a lack of theoretical

background, and it was not possible to identify the

theory to which the findings could be connected to a

priori (Eisenhardt, 1989; Bansal & Corley, 2012). For

furthering empirical evidence, several interviews

with founders and C-levels have been conducted

(Meredith et al., 1989). The informants were

considered “knowledgeable agents” able to provide

evidence concerning their thoughts and intentions

(Gioia et al., 2013, p.17). The researchers collected

the data without influencing with their believing and

knowledge the information gathered, and this

approach led to the unveiling of new observations,

rather than focusing on existing knowledge (Gioia et

al., 2013). Ultimately an “analytic generalization”

(Yin, 1984, p. 31) has been conducted to combine

existing theories with the empirical evidence gathered

from case studies. In order to provide evidence on the

statements resulting from the qualitative research

process and to increase the robustness of the results

obtained (Eisenhardt, 1989), primary and secondary

sources of information were used and combined to

ensure the so-called data triangulation. The primary

dataset mainly consisted of in-depth, semi-structured

interviews carried out with informants from the

companies. A predefined number of questions have

been used by the interviewers to start the interviews

and to explore focal issues identified during the study

objective phase. Nevertheless, there was a relevant

level of flexibility that enabled the exploration of new

concepts holistically emerging during the open and

unrestricted discussion (Yin, 1984). The focus was on

understanding how space technologies characteristics

can have an impact on each startup’s business model

in a way that fosters SDGs. Once analyzed every

single case, a cross-case comparison between the

different startups was performed in order to highlight

and describe points of similarity and points of

difference, being able to the identify the most relevant

variables to address the research objectives. Each

case has been studied by adopting the open coding

practice from Grounded Theory methodology (Glaser

& Strauss, 1967; Strauss & Corbin, 1998). Hence

both informants’ word (in vivo codes) and codes

constructed on it by the analyzers have been used to

develop an inductive coding tree to describe the

themes investigated. This is a holistic approach to the

inductive concept that provides rigor to qualitative

research (Gioia et al., 2013).

Following the methodology proposed by Clark et

al. (2010), codes belonging to the different cases have

been iteratively compared to aggregate them in first-

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order concepts. Afterwards, to ensure a higher level

of abstraction, first-order concepts have been further

grouped into second-order categories. A comparison

of the eleven cases in terms of first-order concepts,

second-order categories and overarching dimensions

was performed in order to identify similarities and

diverging patterns. This allowed to obtain novel

findings by analyzing the available data (Eisenhardt,

1989) and consequently, to inductively generate an

empirical model regarding how emerging

technologies can enable startups to achieve

sustainable business model innovation.

Table 1: Overview of the Cases.

Startup Space Technology

Leveraged

Informant Role

Satellite

Communication

Co-Founder &

COO

B Earth Observation CEO & Chairman

C Satellite

Communication

Co-Founder &

CEO

D Earth Observation

Co-Founder &

CRO

E Earth Observation

Co-Founder

F Earth Observation

Co-Founder &

CEO

Satellite

Communication

Co-Founder &

CEO

H Earth Observation

Vice President,

Sales & Marketing

I Earth Observation

CEO

J Earth Observation

Co-Founder &

CSO

L Earth Observation

Co-Founder &

CEO

4 RESULTS

4.1 Space Technologies’ Performance

as a Solution to the Unwillingness

to Pay

Several startups such as F, I, H, J, and L, declared that

their business has the objective of solving the

problem of low-quality products or services in their

sector. For example, H’s VP Marketing and Sales

explained: “if you start trading emission credits, you

need to be able to have accurate measurements of

these, because otherwise the whole system does not

have as much integrity. [...] the measurement

methods and the technologies that were being used

were not accurate. They were not easy to use.”. From

the analysis it has emerged that the consequence of

such low-quality information is the loss of trust from

the clients, as explained by J’s Co-Founder: “most

farmers who have been in touch with weather forecast

[…] don't trust it because it was not good quality”.

Therefore, the startup took a couple of years of

research to build a system that could overperform the

standard global weather forecast models, with the

main scope of building up the trust of their customers,

who “once they have started using the service […]

tend to stay on. And that I think is the best evidence

that service is useful for the farmers” (Co-Founder of

J). This concept of the lack of trust in services that are

not accurate has been reiterated also by L’s CEO,

who, when talking about the incumbent technology,

affirmed “it was very prone to error, and as a result

of that companies were not necessarily trusting

carbon credits, and in parallel, forest owners and

project developers were having a hard time certifying

it”. Also in this case, they “use the satellite data to

bring more transparency and trust to the relationship,

but also to help the relationship happen”.

Therefore, from the interviews it has emerged that

with rough estimates and prone to error data, it is very

difficult to provide valuable services and it is even

more difficult to convince the customer of the value

of the offer, leading to their Unwillingness to Pay. In

this context, the innovation provided by space

technologies’ performance seem to be a valuable

solution. Indeed, it seems that space-based services

are more reliable and trustfulness and for this reason,

it is easier for end users to recognize the value

embedded in the offer, also when it comes to services

that aim to provide positive impacts on the society,

the economy, or the environment.

4.2 Space Technologies’ Ubiquity as a

Solution to the Difficulty of Access

In other cases, the main problem addressed by the

startups resulted to be the difficulty of reaching

remote areas. For example, when talking about the

characteristics of space technologies that are key for

their business, E’s Co-Founder affirmed: “I think the

first one is ubiquity. So, the problem for smallholder

farmers is that they are in very remote places. Usually

in places where there are not real infrastructures”.

Hence, satellites’ ubiquity is fundamental to their aim

of addressing smallholder farmers excluded from

traditional insurance services, because it offers a valid

Emerging Technologies as Enabler of Sustainable Business Model Innovation: Evidence from Space Tech New Ventures

549

solution to the issue of remote places lacking all the

technological equipment. Along the lines of this is the

example provided by G. Their mission is to “bring

connectivity in rural or remote places” (CEO of G),

where it is not accessible “either because

infrastructure did not exist, or existing solutions were

prohibitively expensive” thanks to their proprietary

satellites’ coverage. Moreover, J’s Co-Founder

affirmed to solve the problem that “in Africa there

are not many ground-based weather observations”,

by “using satellite derived products [...]because we

have access to these sorts of derived products in areas

where you don't have ground observations”.

Therefore, this demonstrates that the capability of

satellites of reaching every part of the world can be

leveraged to overcome the Difficulty of Access

transaction obstacle that traditional companies face

when targeting remote areas, especially with impact-

oriented objectives.

4.3 Space Technologies’ Low-Cost as a

Solution to the Inability to Pay

The last problem – or market opportunity – emerged

as tackled by the startups in the sample is represented

by the high prices of the competitors. The CEO of G,

about their customers affirmed: “They also do not

typically have large operating budgets to spend”.

Hence, they are “committed to supporting these types

of organizations and the work they do by giving them

access to the type of communication network they

need, at an affordable price.” Similarly, in the case

of E, thanks to the fact that they use freely available

data and thus have low costs, they can serve those

microinsurance organizations that work with poor

farmers in developing countries, which are

traditionally excluded by insurance because too

expensive for their low incomes. On this line is also

the example provided by H, indeed for what concerns

the traditional competitors providing emission

monitoring services, “the measurement methods and

the technologies that were being used were also very

costly”, whereas their technology “allows them to do

that, but to do that at the lowest possible cost” (Vice

President Sales and Marketing of H). Thanks to the

low-cost of the data, also J is able to provide a service

that costs only “two euros cents per SMS […] If they

want to receive every day for a whole year it would

be 7€ per year” which represents a “very low cost

compared to, for example, the price for other inputs

like fertilizer, or pesticides. Something like 1 or 2%

of the cost of that. (Co-Founder of J).

Hence, it emerges that having a business model

with a value capture mechanism able of lowering the

final price of a product or service may allow many

people traditionally excluded to be targeted as

customers. Therefore, space technologies can be

adopted to overcome the Inability to Pay of some

potential customers, traditional obstacle encountered

by commercial companies exploring sustainability

purposes.

5 DISCUSSION

There is a common understanding that enterprises

must have an active role in attaining sustainability,

yet pursuing a dual orientation is complex due to

tensions and contrasts between profit and impact

(Pache & Santos, 2013; Doherty et al., 2014; DiVito

& Bohnsack, 2017; Tykkyläinen & Ritala, 2021).

These conflicts generally arise due to a series of

obstacles and barriers to sustainability, which have

been explored within academia and empirically

emerged by the results of this study (Santos et al.,

2015).

The empirical model we derived sheds light about

how the inner characteristics of an emerging

technology can act as levers for the innovation of the

business model in sustainable terms. Specifically, we

show how they enter the business model in the value

creation component as originally conceived by Amit

and Zott (2001), enabling three sustainable business

model innovation mechanisms:

• Sustainable Value Propositions Innovation

through the mitigation of the unwillingness to

pay transaction obstacle, acting as a “sniper”

since the high performance of those

technologies provide valuable and reliable

services, by catching up opportunities that were

not addressed before and, most importantly, to

establish a relationship with customers based on

trust and transparency.

• Sustainable Value Delivery Innovation through

the mitigation of the difficult to access

transaction obstacle, acting as a “trojan horse”

since the ubiquity feature of the technology

allows to include customer segments previously

excluded from the provision of the service due

to their remote location.

• Sustainable Value Capture Innovation through

the migration of the inability to pay transaction

obstacle, acting as a “piggy bank” given the

low-cost nature of space technologies, both in

terms of satellites and space data, which may

permit to significantly reduce the costs and,

most importantly, to shift the cost savings on to

customers by decreasing the price of the service.

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We thus advance the literature on sustainable

business model innovation providing one of the first

insights opening the black box of emerging

technologies’ features, beyond the ones

characterizing their diffusion (Rotolo et al., 2015).

Specifically, the features of high performance, low-

cost, and ubiquity may serve not only as a driver of

diffusion of the technology, but also drivers to

achieve sustainable business model innovation. These

inner characteristics allows emerging technologies to

work as transaction obstacles mitigation’s

mechanisms, thus driving innovation in the firm’

system of activities beyond the creation of value, but

carrying out successful and sustainable value

proposition, value delivery, and value capture

activities.

6 CONCLUSION

Drawing on the increasing attention of both scholars

and practitioner towards the sustainability issues, as

well as the role that private firms should play in

achieving socio-environmental goals, this paper

offers original insights from a business model

perspective. Specifically, we highlight how the inner

characteristics of an emerging technology may serve

as enabler of sustainable business model innovation

(SBMI), through the mitigation of transaction

obstacles to sustainability that often represent the

main hurdle in achieving no-profit oriented

objectives. Further studies may develop this line of

investigation looking at how other kinds of emerging

technologies may represent other sources of SBMI, as

well as how established firms with their articulated

organizational structure leverage them to achieve

SDGs.

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