The Business Model as Mediator during Socio-Technical Transitions – Empirical Evidence from Applied AI Technology Startups in the Energy and Transportation Sector.
Author: | Schmeiss, J., Stephany, F., & Tech, R. |
Published in: | |
Year: | 2019 |
Type: | Working paper |
DOI: | 10.31235/osf.io/zuhq4 |
Firms are an important driver of socio-technical transitions, where a technological innovation moves from a protected niche to a new dominant socio-technical regime. The firm's business model functions as an important mediator during this process, articulating a shared vision of what the technology can do. Following recent calls for a closer examination of the business model’s role during socio-technical transitions, we study 375 startups that develop applied AI technologies. Based on a large-scale semantic analysis of the startup’s website texts, we ran a statistical hierarchical clustering and identified three distinct roles: (1) expansion of the technology in scale and scope, (2) exploration of the technology in-depth, (3) new ways of interacting with technology.
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Fabian Stephany, Dr.
Jessica Schmeiss, Dr.
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