Triggers of sustainable business model innovation in technology-based startups
An empirical investigation
Ghassan Kharbeet (TU Delft - Delft Centre for Entrepreneurship)
Hanieh Khodaei (TU Delft - Delft Centre for Entrepreneurship)
Roland Ortt (TU Delft - Economics of Technology and Innovation)
Victor Scholten (TU Delft - Delft Centre for Entrepreneurship)
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Abstract
This study examines what technology-based startups treat as external triggers for initiating sustainable business model innovation (SBMI) through an interview-centered, comparative qualitative study of 31 sustainability-oriented startups in the Netherlands. The 46 semi-structured interviews conducted during 2023–2025 were complemented by archival material to develop a multilevel framework of external triggers. The analysis identifies seven trigger domains across two distinct levels. At the value network level, startups report customer and user adoption expectations for greener solutions, ecosystem gatekeeper and competitive pressures, impact-oriented finance and public funding conditions, and digital trust, traceability, and transparency requirements in procurement and inter-organizational exchange. At the institutional level, startups report clean-tech trajectories and socio-technical infrastructures, rules, standards, and compliance regimes, and societal climate and circularity norms shaping legitimacy climates and solution spaces. The findings show that SBMI initiation is not prompted by an undifferentiated set of generic environmental factors, but by structured multilevel triggers that impact startups through distinct ecosystem channels and prompt reconsideration of value creation, value delivery, and value capture.
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