Different entrepreneurs, different business models? : An explorative study of the effect of entrepreneurial values, beliefs and attitudes on entrepreneurs' approach to the business model design process

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Different entrepreneurs, different

business models?

An explorative study of the effect of entrepreneurial values, beliefs and attitudes on

entrepreneurs’ approach to the business model design process

Master’s thesis, MSc in Entrepreneurship

University of Amsterdam and Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam Student: Jan Jaap van Noort

UvA: 11425282

VU: 2590212

Supervisor: dr. Tsvi Vinig Date of submission: August 16th_{, 2017}

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This document is written by Jan Jaap van Noort. who declares to take full responsibility for the contents of this document.

I declare that the text and the work presented in this document is original and that no sources other than those mentioned in the text and its references have been used in creating it.

The Faculty of Economics and Business is responsible solely for the supervision of completion of the work, not for the contents.

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Abstract

This paper aims to clarify the effects of entrepreneurial values, beliefs, and attitudes, on the business model design process. A literature study has revealed that the business model is a modern and flourishing theoretical concept, where an understanding of the influence of individual factors is still lacking. This paper uses a qualitative approach, interviewing entrepreneurs, in order to identify ways in which entrepreneurs’ values, beliefs, and attitudes set the stage for the business model design process. This study finds that the entrepreneur’s motivation to start a business, type of opportunity pursued, and business model perception and knowledge as key influences for the business model design process. The conclusions of this study can be used as a foundation for future work on the cognitive perspective towards business models.

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1. Introduction: Different entrepreneurs, different

business models?

Entrepreneurship research has greatly expanded to establish itself as a multi-faceted research domain. Aspects from economics, management, psychology, sociology, innovation, and many more have combined to shape the field of entrepreneurship to where it is today. Entrepreneurship in current times seems to largely evolve around technological and service innovation, much influenced by the internet. These product and service innovations seem endless and impossible to keep up with.

One other aspect of entrepreneurship however, research on business models is flourishing: over the past two decades literature on the topic has steadily emerged and as new types of business models have emerged during the Internet Boom and subsequent developments in business models have taken place, researchers have expanded literature regarding the topic. The business model is currently a central construct in entrepreneurship research (Trimi & Berbegal-Mirabent, 2012). The construct has been in a crisis of definition, but can loosely be defined as ‘the way a company does business’, including components such as its value proposition, revenue model, and key activities. This view corresponds to the perspective of the business model as an activity system (Zott & Amit, 2010).

Although what business models are and do remained ambiguous until quite recent, the relevance and importance of the business model has become increasingly clear. Zott, Amit, and Massa (2011) have conducted a literature review which reveals that total value creation (Amit & Zott, 2001), competitive advantage (Christensen, 2001, Magretta, 2002), as well as firm performance (e.g., Zott & Amit, 2007, 2008; Casadesus-Masanell & Ricart, 2010) as strategic outcomes of the right business model design and adaptation; Doganova & Eyquem-Renault (2009)

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argue that business models can play a key role in attempting to gain legitimacy for entrepreneurs; Christensen (2001) recognized the business model can lend a competitive advantage to a firm that is distinct from the firm’s product market positioning. In fact, business model innovations have often been at the core of industry disruption, exemplified by companies such as Walmart and Dell, and the business (Magretta, 2002).

Wirtz et al (2016), as well as others before them like Zott, Amit & Massa (2011) and Morris, Schindehutte, and Allen (2005), have conducted literature reviews not only on the definition of the concept of the business model but also on its components, facets, antecedents, and consequences. In their reviews, they focus on exogenous factors like the business environment but do not mention endogenous factors that influence the processes of design, implementation, and innovation. Many authors have theorized the linkages between competitive strategy and the business model (Casadenus-Masanell & Ricart, 2010, Teece, 2010, DaSilva & Trkman, 2014), and with that, the market a firm operates in and the way it adds value. Also, many methods exist for the design and innovation of business models: including the business model canvas as a tool for considering assumptions (Osterwalder & Pigneur, 2010) and the Lean Startup method as a method of iteratively building the business based on testing assumptions rather than writing a completely thought out plan (Ries, 2011). Despite the clear establishment of the construct, Zott et al. (2011) do recognize the lack of how understanding on the business model’s antecedents and formation process.

It seems obvious that the entrepreneur who designs a business model has a certain degree of influence on it, so assumedly, there will be a strong link between the entrepreneur and the business model. However, what remains yet an unknown, is the way the entrepreneur influences the business model. Morris et al. (2005) already stressed the need for research on the way entrepreneurs assess business model quality and appraising the model’s fit with changing environmental conditions, as well as on the dynamics of model emergence and evolution. This seems to concur with Mitchell et al.’s definition (2002) of entrepreneurial cognitions as “the

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knowledge structures that people use to make assessments, judgments, or decisions involving opportunity evaluation and venture creation and growth”. In this definition, venture creation is already mentioned, of which the business model is inherently part.

Furthermore, the processes of opportunity recognition has been widely described in entrepreneurship research (including Baron, 2006, Zara, Korri, & Yu, 2005, Ardichvili, Cardozo, & Ray, 2003). Baron (2006) defined opportunity recognition as the cognitive process through which individuals conclude they have identified an opportunity, to which Ardichvili et al. (2003) added that business opportunities are identified in order to add value to stakeholders in prospective ventures. Ardichvili et al. (2003) argue that entrepreneurs play proactive roles in opportunity identification, and that the process is influenced by individual as well as situational factors. Again, as stated by Mitchell et al. (2002), entrepreneurial cognitions play a central role in decisions regarding opportunity identification. According to Eckhardt & Shane (2003), the field of entrepreneurship is better served by studying the entrepreneurial process itself, rather than the performance of individual entrepreneurs. A study of the business model design process and how there may be discrepancies among different entrepreneurs seems to fit in with this argument.

However, much more is known about the effect of entrepreneurial cognitions on opportunity identification. Therefore, another interesting avenue of research is the different roles entrepreneurial cognitions play in the business model process compared to the opportunity identification process.

This study aims to expand literature on the business model construct by researching the influence of entrepreneurial cognitions on the business model design process and juxtaposing this against established exogenous influences on the business model design process. All of the above theories have been summarized in a single theoretical framework in an effort to clarify the links that have been established from the literature research. The ‘business model process’ has been further specified with help of the framework established by Wirtz, Pistoia, Ulrich, & Göttel (2016),

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consisting of design, implementation, operation, change & evolution, and performance & control. This study focuses specifically on the most initial phase, the business model design process. Because of how closely the business model design process

follows the opportunity recognition phase, this study will incorporate aspects of entrepreneurial opportunity recognition and exploitation theory in order to maximize theoretical relevance. Figure 1 provides the conceptual model, illustrating the link between entrepreneurial cognitions, opportunity identification, and the business model design process.

The research question of this study is formulated as follows:

How do entrepreneurial cognitions shape the way entrepreneurs design the business model in the company’s formation stage?

This paper is structured as follows. In the theoretical background section, a critical review of existing literature has been carried out on the topics of the business model, the business model design process, entrepreneurial cognitions, and entrepreneurial creativity, in order to form a theoretical base that can be used to research how entrepreneurial cognitions and play a role in the business model design process. The method section describes the way empirical research methods that have been applied in order to collect and analyze the data that is required to answer the research question. The findings section will elaborate on the data that has been collected and highlight it’s the results of the data collection and analysis, and finally, the discussion section will describe this study’s conclusions and how they contribute to entrepreneurship literature and practice.

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2. Theoretical background

In this section, available literature on entrepreneurial cognitions, business models, and the business model design process will be reviewed. It reviews what a business model is and where it originates from in a business context; the way business models may be designed, what requirements can be considered for successful business model design, and design elements that are generally considered; a cognitive approach towards business models and a review of entrepreneurial values, beliefs, and attitudes; and finally, a cognitive approach on opportunity recognition as well.

2.1 What is a business model?

The term the business model first appeared in literature as early as the fifties (Bellman et al., 1957), when it had a very different meaning and was only mentioned once. During the late nineties, when internet business was booming and the NASDAQ market surged for technology companies, business models became very prominent in both literature and practice. (Osterwalder, Pigneur & Tucci, 2005).

During this period of tremendous popularity of the business model concept, it endured a definitional crisis. Porter (2001) criticized the business model concept as being “murky at best” and over-simplifying business management practice. This has led academics to search for a clear definition of the term and since then, many authors have presented their own definitions of the business model concept without building on each other, consequently not advancing the field as quickly as it could have (Osterwalder & Pigneur, 2005). No uncontested definition of the concept has emerged, creating the urgency for a clear definition of the term business model. Yet, the business model is often studied without explicitly providing the definition that a study uses (Zott et al., 2011).

Osterwalder & Pigneur (2005) describe the business model as “the blueprint of how a company does business”. This seems like a clear definition but may lack depth. Teece (2010)

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describes the business model as the way the company creates and delivers value to the customer, and then converts payments received to profits. Casadenus-Masanell & Ricart (2010) state that the business model is a reflection of the firm’s realized strategy, referring to the logic of the firm, the way it operates, and how it creates value for the customer. Baden-Fuller & Mangematin (2013) describe how business models can also be used to categorize the businesses according to categorized elements, allowing for better understanding of cause-and-effect relationships relevant to businesses.

The above definitions taken together create an adequate image of what the business model really may be: the way the company creates and delivers value for the customer. Wirtz et al.’s definition of the business model based on their elaborate review of the state of business model research may be the most elaborate and specific in defining the business model as

…a simplified and aggregated representation of the relevant activities of a company. It describes how marketable information, products and/or services are generated by means of a company's value-added component. In addition to the architecture of value creation, strategic as well as customer and market components are taken into consideration, in order to achieve the superordinate goal of generating, or rather, securing the competitive advantage. (Wirtz et al., 2016)

Zott et al. (2011) mention that business model research encompasses three definitions of business models; as an e-business model archetype, cost/revenue architecture, and activity system. Of these three proposed subtypes, the definition proposed by Wirtz et al (2016) corresponds most with the business model as an activity system, where the main analytical focus lies on strategic studies focusing on boundary-spanning activities. This definition of the business model concept will be leading for this study, since it is the most specific on the purpose of the business model and the scope of the concept.

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2.2 Business model origins

Knowing that the business model is ‘the representation of the relevant activities of a company’ – how it creates value and operates to do so – how does a business model come to be? Lately, the business model concept has been greatly advanced. However, one main issue that is poorly understood is how companies build and change their business model (Achtenhagen, Melin & Naldi, 2013) in order to create a sustained competitive advantage.

The first factor influencing the business model is the firm’s chosen strategy. Casadenus-Masanell & Ricart (2010) argue that the business model is a result of the strategy a firm is pursuing. The strategy is the plan of dealing with contingencies that may arise, and the business model then is the configuration that arises to realize the strategy. Teece (2010) also describes the link between strategy and business models, arguing that the competitive advantage that a business model may induce is irrelevant if not coupled to the business strategy, for instance by creating a segmented business model to serve specific markets. Similar to Casadenus-Masanell & Ricart (2010), Teece (2010) stresses the need for strategic analysis. However, the business model is not described as a direct result of strategy, but rather a distinct concept that needs to be coupled with strategy. This is in line with the findings of DaSilva & Trkman (2013), who argue that the business model needs to be in line with the competitive strategy of the focal firm. However, DaSilva & Trkman argue that strategy and the business model are in fact similar except for one key dimension, which is temporal orientation: strategy if long-term where the business model is short-term oriented.

Casadesus-Masanell and Ricart (2010) also argue that although not every firm has an explicit strategy, all will have a business model because these choices are always made implicitly. In fact, according to George & Bock (2011), entrepreneurs immediately create tacit representations of potential business models as part of the opportunity recognition process. This means that business models may also originate tacitly or organically, an insight that extends the boundaries of the construct.

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Explicitly constructed business models represent a clear business logic within a firm, improving management of the business according to these rules (Osterwalder, Pigneur, Tucci, 2005). Awareness of the business model as a concept helps businesses in the design, planning, change, and implementation of the business model. This allows businesses to react faster due to the improved understanding of the firm’s business logic and effectively aligns components of the business like technology and organization with the firm’s strategy (Osterwalder et al., 2005).

2.3 Business model design

Wirtz et al. (2016) describe the business model management process as consisting of five steps: design, implementation, change & evolution, operation, and operation & controlling. Business model design, as the first step of the business model management process, generally regards research on representations of the business model, such as ontologies, and how the business model is principally created (Wirtz et al, 2016). In this research is it key to clearly specify the concept of business model design in order to clearly delimit the research, for which the above definition of ‘principally creating’ the business model lends itself very well. One key observation with this is that it remains rather vague. However, this study, the definition is not delimited any further with the purpose to remain broad and limit bias. This is because in researching the individual factors that influence the business model design it is not unthinkable that many entrepreneurs have a different concept of the limitations of the demarcation of the business model design process, in which case this will undoubtedly influence the process itself, which is precisely the point of this research.

Although further specification of the concept of business model design may not be in the interest of this study, it is key to form a basic understanding of the principles of business model design in order to investigate the influence of entrepreneurial cognitions on it. This section will therefore review existing theory on the business model design process, including the objectives of

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business model design, design elements and ontologies, and factors influencing the effectiveness of the business model design process.

As stated in the previous section, the firm’s business model and its strategy have a close-knit relation (Masanell & Ricart, 2010, Teece, 2010) – and according to Casadenus-Masanell & Ricart (2010), the business model design will be based on the firm’s competitive strategy. The main goal of the business model design is to generate and secure a competitive advantage for the focal firm (Wirtz et al, 2016). Secondly, the business model functions as a narrative that helps to convince relevant stakeholders like investors, clients, suppliers, and other partners of the business (Keen & Qureshi, 2006), and can help align employees with the business logic (Magretta, 2002). Especially in the case of companies leveraging technological services, such as Google, the business model will function as a mediator between technology and firm performance, serving as a method to monetize abstract technologies like search engines, by applying a two-sided business model combining users and advertisers (Baden-Fuller & Haefliger, 2013). Onetti, Zuchella, Jones & McDougall-Covin (2012) argue that effective business model design is especially important in technology-based ventures due to the complex interconnectedness of activities and substantial differences from tradition strategic management theory.

Furthermore, Nenomen & Storbacka (2010) describe value co-creation, which is the concept that value is no longer created within the boundaries of one firm, but rather value is co-created between actors in various networked firms. This again adds to the complexity of designing a competitive and coherent business model because the focal firm must consider its dependency on other firms within the networked market in creating and delivering its value.

Finally, according to Keen & Qureshi (2006), the most effective business models will work regardless of industry, allowing the focal firm to not solely successfully exploit the initial opportunity, but providing the possibility to enter larger and broader markets in order to create an intricate system of value creation in multiple markets, all based on one core business logic.

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2.3.1 Design factors

Successfully designing the underlying business model of a firm lies at the basis of sustained value creation (Osterwalder & Pigneur, 2010). In order to fulfill the purpose of generating a competitive advantage, the business model should be designed with flexibility in mind, to allow for business model evolution or innovation, as per the influence of internal or external drivers (Wirtz et al., 2016). According to Shafer, Smith, & Linder (2005) flawed assumptions regarding the business’s core logic and value network are common problems facing business models. Flawed assumptions can be mitigated with validation methods; Trimi and Berbegal-Mirabent (2012) as well as Sosna, Trevinyo-Rodríguez, & Ramakrishna Velamuri (2010) recognize the need to design flexible business models, adopting trial-and-error methods, that allow for validation of business model hypotheses and adaptation of the business logic according to market demands. Achtenhagen, Melin & Naldi (2013) recognize that businesses need to change over time in order to achieve sustained value creation, which stresses the need for flexible business models even beyond the initial validation of market demands. In line, Shirky (2008) argues that ventures with a flexible business model are more likely to succeed due to this ability to change and adjust the business model. On the opposing side of this perspective though, Martins, Rindova, and Greenbaum (2015) argue that business models often show little dynamic in the absence of external pressures.

All elements of a business model should be mutually reinforcing (Osterwalder et al., 2005); and reflecting on the concept of the business model as the ‘core logic’ of the firm, it can be argued that any aspect of the firm that is not part of this mutual reinforcement is not a part of the business model. Furthermore, Nenomen & Storbacka (2010) describe the concepts of internal and external configurational fit and argue that designing business models with high internal and external fit allow firms to radically improve their share of co-created value. Internal fit can be achieved by modifying potentially incompatible elements of the business model in, whereas external fit is a result of the

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firm’s business model compatibility with its stakeholders like suppliers, partners and clients, and can be achieved by selecting suitable partners as well as modifying the business model. Dubosson-Torbay, Osterwalder & Pigneur (2002) describe how firms can use a business model approach to become more efficient, more flexible, and more responsive to customer demand.

Designing a coherent business model is a challenging task. Technology has transformed the traditional balance between firm, supplier, and customer (Trimi & Berbegal-Mirabent, 2012), and further enhances the possibilities and potential complexity of business models (Baden-Fuller & Haefliger, 2013), for instance in the way that online advertising has allowed businesses to approach new customer segments. However, tools like the Business Model Canvas (Osterwalder & Pigneur, 2010) may offer help as a set of design elements (see next section), and the Lean startup methodology (Ries, 2011) also offers entrepreneurs help with an iterative approach, which should help businesses in their adaptive approach, and this approach has shown to result in fewer failures among starting businesses (Blank, 2013).

2.3.2 Design elements

Many design elements, among many different dimensions, have been discussed in business model literature. Most commonly, and recognizably, business models are structured into frameworks, which are used to represent as well as design and analyze business models by their components. Like the definition of the business model, the specific components of the business model have also been heavily debated. For instance, Johnson, Christensen & Kagermann (2008) mention four critical elements to any successful business model: customer value proposition, key resources, key processes, and profit formula. However, perhaps the best known set of components comes from Osterwalder & Pigneurs Business Model Canvas (2010), which is a tool that can be used to describe as well as create a business model by means of the framework. It consists of the central value proposition, surrounded by 8 elements (key partners, key resources, key activities, cost structure, customer segments, customer relationships, channels, revenue streams). The

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Business Model Canvas has been used exactly as what it’s called: a blank canvas that starting as well as existing businesses can use to design and assess business models. The power of these business model frameworks is that the elements they contain provide a holistic view of the business model, empowering entrepreneurs and managers to carefully consider the interactions among them.

Aside from frameworks consisting of elements, other characterizations of business model frameworks also occur in entrepreneurship and strategy literature. In their analysis of business model practice, George & Bock (2011) distinguish three characteristic dimensions of to the organizational structure that are analogue to the business model. The resource structure refers to the architecture of the organization, including core production assets and primary resources; the transactive structure refers to the architecture of transactions with suppliers, clients, and other stakeholders; the value structure refers to the system of value creation and capture.

Zott & Amit (2010) describe the content, structure, and governance of the business model, which go beyond interdependency or network structure. Activity system content refers to the selection of activities, i.e., those that are performed; activity system structure describes how the activities are linked (e.g., the sequencing between them), and it also captures their importance for the business model; activity system governance refers to who performs the activities (Zott & Amit, 2010).

Finally, business models can also be characterized by design themes rather than elements. These themes refer to the dominant value creation drivers and the way design elements are configured to attain this specific type of value. Zott & Amit (2010) have established four design themes of novelty, lock-in, complementarity, and efficiency, under the acronym NICE. Novelty centered activity systems will adopt innovative types of content, structure or governance; lock-in refers to the way a business model keeps parties attracted (for instance as a result of high switching costs or network externalities); complementarity arises whenever activities are bundled to provide

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more value than similar activities run separately; and efficiency refers to activity systems designed so as to achieve greater efficiency by reducing transaction costs.

There are many more frameworks and categorizations of business model elements, and the above only represent a few of which the Business Model Canvas is by far the best known and among the most applied by practitioners. Although this section is nowhere near exhaustive, it should serve as a basis for an understanding of different elements that entrepreneurs need to consider in the process of business model design.

2.3 Cognitive approach to business models

The above review of business model design highlights design factors that are based on exogenous factors. Take for example how the business model is related to the firm’s competitive strategy, or how the business model needs to be flexible in order to be able to validate and adjust to market demand. On the other hand, there are a number of business model ontologies and typologies that aim to describe a set of business model characteristics, like their elements, themes, or themes. The aspect of business model that seems insufficient is the cognitive approach to business models – how, and why, do individual factors influence the business model design process and outcome? In short, how do different people create different business models? According to Chesbrough and Rosenbloom (2002), the business model can also be regarded as a cognitive tool in and of itself, by creating a ‘map’, leading technical inputs to economical outputs. However, this regards the business model as a cognitive tool, and in this research the goal is rather to find cognitive antecedents to the business model. Sosna, Trevinyo-Rodríguez, & Ramakrishna Velamuri (2010) argue that entrepreneurs’ prior knowledge influences their strategic choices in the business formation phase as well as the initial business model design.

In order to research this side of business models, two aspects are reviewed. In order to gain insight on the individual side of business model design literature on entrepreneurial cognition is reviewed, which aims to answer the question of what makes entrepreneurs behave the way they

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do. Then literature on the cognitive aspect of business models is reviewed, gauging the progress that has been made on the subject in order to further build on it.

2.4 Entrepreneurial cognitions

As stated earlier, the aim of this study is to research how individual factors influence the business model design process, including both the way they go about designing the business model and factors the entrepreneur takes into consideration, as well as the final product of the design process. In order to effectively research these ‘individual factors’, it has to be further specified what these individual factors actually comprise. Because it is such a broad concept, the concept of ‘entrepreneurial cognitions’ is taken as the main focus to research the individual factors influencing the business model design process. However, entrepreneurial cognitions by itself are also a broad concept, and unlike it was the case for the concept of the business model design process, entrepreneurial cognitions have to be clearly defined in order to provide a clear direction for this research. This research will therefore build on the definition of Mitchell et al. (2002, p. 97):

“Entrepreneurial cognitions are the knowledge structures that people use to make assessments, judgments, or decisions involving opportunity evaluation, venture creation, and growth.”

This means that entrepreneurial individuals use mental maps to simplify their surroundings and devise new ideas based on the information they get from their surroundings.

In this study, the specific entrepreneurial cognitions of interest are the beliefs, attitudes, and values regarding entrepreneurship, as inspired by the work of Ireland, Covin, & Kuratko (2009). In their work about corporate entrepreneurship strategy, they further specify entrepreneurial cognitions to include the beliefs (the fundamental thoughts about entrepreneurship), attitudes (the way entrepreneurs make judgments based on their beliefs), and values (long lasting, deeply held, prescriptive attitudes) regarding entrepreneurship, and so how this affects the way entrepreneurs make relevant assessments, judgments, or decisions. Researching the way entrepreneurs think about entrepreneurship, how this leads them to make judgments, and take

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actions allows to research the core motivations of entrepreneurs. Ireland et al. (2009) have formed a conceptual framework of corporate entrepreneurship strategy, and argue that the strength of individual entrepreneurial cognitions has a direct effect on the probability that those individuals will recognize and exploit entrepreneurial opportunities. This corresponds with a more recent view on entrepreneurial values by Fayolla, Liñán, & Moriano (2014). According to Fayolla et al., values play a role in how entrepreneurial intentions are formed, and when an individual attaches a higher value to a goal, this person is more likely to plan action in order to reach the goal. This argument illustrates that the concepts of values, attitudes, and beliefs are of key relevance in the process of opportunity recognition and exploitation, which makes it an interesting research topic for the concept of the business model design process as well.

2.5 Opportunity recognition & exploitation vs. business models

There is plenty of insight from opportunity recognition and exploitation literature that shows relevance to the business model design process. Shane & Eckhardt (2003) define opportunities as “situations in which new goods, services, raw materials, markets and organizing methods can be introduced through the formation of new means, ends, or means-ends relationships”, and when the business model is described as the set of relevant activities of a company, the business model can also be described as the set of activities relevant to exploiting an opportunity. In fact, Shane, Locke, & Collins (2003) propose entrepreneurship as a process of opportunity identification, idea development, and execution, which all relate to entrepreneurial motivations and entrepreneurial cognitive factors that they propose include skill, vision, ability, and knowledge. However, George & Bock (2011) find that entrepreneurs form either explicit or implicit business models as soon as an entrepreneur recognizes an opportunity, which slightly clashes with Shane et al.’s perception of the idea development stage. George & Bock (2011) describe this business model as a facilitating tool in the decision process to exploit the opportunity. When the entrepreneur decides to exploit the opportunity by starting a new venture, business models are

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inevitably created. A (coarse) resource structure, transaction structure between the firm and external stakeholders, and value structure creating and monetizing the firm’s value adding services or product are all established as part of the venture formation, which is why George & Bock (2011) argue for the business model as a key part of the entrepreneurial opportunity enactment process. Ardichvili, (2003) include the business model in their opportunity identification triad, as part of the development phase, preceded by recognition and succeeded by evaluation.

Furthermore, Baron (2006) proposed that entrepreneurs use cognitive frameworks that are built up from experience, to connect seemingly unrelated pieces of external information like events or trends. Entrepreneurs use these cognitive frameworks to connect changes in demographics, technology, markets, et cetera, to build patterns, inspiring them for new business ideas (Baron, 2006). It seems plausible that the values, beliefs, and attitudes that an entrepreneur harnesses have a strong influence on the type of information an entrepreneur collects and the way it is placed in the cognitive framework, and therefore affect the business model in turn.

In turn, Ireland et al. (2009) in the aforementioned conceptualization of corporate entrepreneurship hypothesize that organizational members harboring pro-entrepreneurship cognitions will be more likely to recognize entrepreneurial opportunities and attempt to exploit those. This yields the potential conjecture that strong entrepreneurial values, beliefs, and attitudes may lead to more inventive business models as entrepreneurs seek to exploit more, or more complex, opportunities or explore these more deeply.

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3 Methods of research

The aim of this research is to expand business model theory based on in-depth information obtained by a qualitative, case study approach. The theoretical background has resulted in a superficial theoretical link between entrepreneurial cognitions and the business model process, and therefore this is an inductive study, aiming to explore, elaborate on, and describe this theoretical link in order to form a deeper understanding of if, how and why entrepreneurial cognitions affect the business model process. This corresponds with nascent theory research (Edmondson & McManus, 2007). The research has been designed as a multiple case study (Yin, 2003), which allows for the exploration of differences between cases as well as generalizing findings among them, and leading to a broad understanding of the focus constructs by witnessing it’s appearance in different cases.

The data will be collected from a variety recently (<10 years) started businesses. Because of the exploratory nature of the research, no decision has been made to study a specific type of business in terms of industry, size, or activity; rather, a varied sample of heterogeneous cases has been selected in order to promote generalizability. One distinction that has been made, however, is to keep away from too many ‘simple’ businesses; take for example law offices, medical practices, or freelance professionals, because of their straightforwardness. The sample used consists of a wide range of businesses including a variety of both tech- and non-tech startups, a tour operator, an internship and secondment agency, a digital content agency, and one freelance consulting professional. The main reason for choosing young businesses is because their starting phase is more recent or even current, in contrary to long established firms. Furthermore, business models are generally a feature of startups, for the simple reason that they need a convincing logic and narrative. There is no real evidence of established companies announcing a new business model (Keen & Qureshi, 2006). Secondly, startups usually seek to exploit either an innovative value

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proposition that requires an untested business model to match it, or an innovative business model with a proven value proposition, making for great study samples.

A total of ten cases has been researched. For every case, the founder, or one of multiple co-founders, has been interviewed. Selecting the founder or co-founder as respondents for the research is an obvious choice because of their role in the business model design process during the initial phases of the business. For this same reason, no employees or other managers have been interviewed. Respondents have been gathered through activation of personal networks.

Triangulation of the data was not relevant to this research because the entrepreneurs’ personal descriptions of their cognitive maps as well as the business model design process is of key importance. An elaborate overview of cases and respondents can be found in the data guide, appendix II.

Data has been collected by means of semi-structured interviews. The interview protocol will consist of a general introduction to the interviewee’s background and venture, and in-depth questioning regarding entrepreneurial cognitions and the business model process. The business model process will be the main unit of analysis in this research. In order to analyze the data, all interviews have been recorded with permission of the respondent. Data has subsequently been transcribed. All interview transcripts have been analyzed by means of open coding. These codes have consequently been cleaned, and grouped into code families and code themes to categorize and analyze the data. The coding process has resulted in the codebook that can be found in appendix III.

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4 Findings

In this chapter, the findings that are deducted from the data analysis process will be presented. This chapter will not contain the entire codebook with its supporting quotes - this can be found in appendix II. For a full overview of all respondents, please reference the data guide in appendix III.

The aim of the data analysis process has been to extract the information needed to answer the research question; ‘How do entrepreneurial cognitions shape the way entrepreneurs design the business model in the company’s seed and early stages?’ In order to present the findings in a structured manner, information is divided up into two main categories: entrepreneurial cognitions and the business model design process. The findings related to entrepreneurial cognitions are discussed, followed by the findings related to the business model design process in order to come to a deeper understanding of how these subjects are related in our data. This provides an empirical base on which the research question has been answered.

4.1 Entrepreneurial cognitions: values, beliefs, and attitudes

Entrepreneurial cognitions are a fuzzy theoretical concept. Before analyzing the way entrepreneurs shape the business model design process, their cognitive frameworks were analyzed. In order to analyze the underlying values, beliefs, and attitudes of entrepreneurs, factors like general perspective, measures of success, motivations, have been assessed parallel to the values, beliefs, and attitudes in order to draw concrete answers from the respondents.

4.1.1 Values & beliefs: motivation

When researching these frameworks, the initial concept that has been analyzed is the respondent’s motivation for entrepreneuring. A number of main ‘archetypes’ of motivation can be distinguished within our data. Our sample contains a number of entrepreneurs that have started

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multiple businesses, who interestingly indicate different motivations for starting each business. The motivation first discussed for starting a business is the typical ‘entrepreneurial drive’, or a search for personal professional independence. This can be found in many of the respondents, although to different degrees per person. Marijke van Noord clearly mentions a turning point when working ‘for a boss’, which lead her to start Castellum Consult:

R6: After a discussion with my manager about holidays that were planned, but I couldn’t go on, I said ‘you know what? I’m just going to quit. I’m not extending my contract’. That meant I needed to do something else, and then I considered not to get an employment contract at all anymore.

Other entrepreneurs don’t describe a clear ‘turning point’, but many of them do describe a drive to pursue their own ideas, in a way where they can be their own boss, as do Berend Tillema of Agroflux, Erjon Tuenter of Blauw Gras, and Tim Molendijk of Nescio:

R3: Yes, I would say entrepreneurial drive. I had worked for a boss before, but I’m not the ‘following’ person per se – I wanted the freedom to execute my own plans.

R7: We thought entrepreneuring was really cool, but it didn’t have to be marketing necessarily. It also could have been toilet bowls.

R9: After a few years of studying, and when that ended, I thought: okay, if I don’t think of something now I’ll have to be a consultant on the Zuidas. I considered it briefly but quicly realized that that wasn’t my calling. So, I better thought about what I wanted to do instead.

Tuenter and Molendijk actually had lifelong experience as entrepreneurs. The difference among the two was the sector they had ventured in. Tuenter can be describes as a typical ‘hustler’, always finding ways to make small amounts of money, whereas Molendijk was a typical ‘hacker’, who had always had small internet companies, building websites, hosting servers, and the like, before finally starting SmartPR which later became Nescio.

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R7: I’ve always done that. When I was 15 or 16 years old I was copying FIFA, selling it to friends. I also imported football jerseys from Hong Kong for a while, as close to real as it gets. During the 2010 World Cup I sold a couple hundred of those shirts. So I was always picking about.

R9: When I was 16 I got on the internet, and a year later I had built my first websites, was earning money with it too, and already then I got the idea: I can make money with this.

The lust for challenge can be quite closely associated with the search for personal independence, although not all entrepreneurs explicitly search for challenge in the same way.

Joachim de Sterke, of Universit, describes how a lack of challenge was one reason for him to venture out with his then current CEO. De Sterke and his CEO had an idea with which the shareholders didn’t agree. About the decision de Sterke faced when he had to choose between venturing out and staying in the previous business he says:

R4: That’s quite typical from person to person. One will say ‘fine, you pay my salary, let’s do it’, whereas another will say ‘no, that takes away the challenge’. I wanted to move on to the next challenge, which is where the future lies. That’s what I want to invest my time and energy into.

Although Berend Tillema did not describe challenge as the explicit motivation to start his company, he does describe it as a reason to keep doing what he does:

R3: It needs to remain a challenge. Once you solve a problem, you need to move on with the next. If not, it’s best to sell the business and do something else.

On the other side of the spectrum of entrepreneurial motivation, entrepreneurs are motivated not by the premise of being self-employed, but also by the result of entrepreneuring. Many of the entrepreneurs in the sample describe the drive to pursue a specific idea or make an impact in one way or another; whether it is simply improving the life of the clients or users, or by implementing more idealistic change like environmental preservation. These motives are neither mutually exclusive nor inclusive. For instance, not all entrepreneurs who had an idea also specifically sought independence, nor did all entrepreneurs who sought independence have a

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concrete idea they wanted to pursue. Berend Tillema stated he didn’t want to work for a boss, but here he states how he is motivated by how he feels he has something to offer, both to farmers using his product as well as the environment which could benefit from growing crops in the sea:

R3: I feel like I can really make a contribution. To the farmers, and the way they are farming now, but also limiting the environmental impact, and limiting the use of land necessary for husbandry. That it allows for a shift in crop production to the sea. That motivated me as well.

As described earlier, de Sterke of Universit had some discussion with his shareholders. He provides his primary motivation to venture out as the drive he had to execute his idea and make a success of it:

R4: But why does one do this? One does this because one is convinced of an idea and wants to make that idea a success.

Guy Kessels of Hugo and Quriobot clearly describes how frustrations within his job led him to provide a solution to solve these frustrations. Although his statement to ‘see where it goes’ seems rather nonchalant, his frustration about the then current approach seems real:

R8: I don’t believe in the whole process encompassing it. They all try to compete eachother out of business, those organisers – as I had seen while working for PayLogic. That means you just can’t let your interns handle your feedback, at one point in time, there’s no way that can be helpful? All those conclusions together, I decided to write a plan, quit my job, and see where it goes.

As can be found in the above statements, even among entrepreneurs that all share the urge to exploit their ideas, there are many differences. Some pursue these ideas out of frustration, like Kessels; some feel like their current environment is limiting, like de Sterke; and some, like Tillema, have ideals they want to pursue. Looking at what drive entrepreneurs, whether it be motives of independence or motives of pursuing an idea, results seem very heterogeneous when treading into detail.

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4.1.2 Values & beliefs: successes

The values and beliefs entrepreneurs harness can be very fuzzy, and tricky to research. In order to gain a clear picture of the values and beliefs that drive entrepreneurs not only in starting their business but also in their daily work, one method has been to discuss entrepreneurs’ measure of success. One of the major findings here is that for many entrepreneurs, what it really comes down to, is a feeling of impact. Kate Okrasinski of Bike With me wants to help people and finds success when others do:

R1: Which is the millennial paradigm: the effort that I put in is going to catalyze meaningful change for people, and that's the measure of satisfaction for me, absolutely.

Building on Kessels’s mention of Qdance, here he mentions one measure of success as his absolute primary value, which is to generate change for people as well:

R8: When do I go home, or to bed, with a good feeling? When I know that very many people have used my idea with joy. That is really great to me.

For Marijke van Noort, of ZoZit’t, one major turning point was when the court of justice applied one of her injury and labor market reports in an appeals case. For ZoZit’t, the paradigm of customer and user is significantly different compared to for instance her other business, Castellum Consult, because law firms may be the client, courts and lawyers may apply and use the data in the reports, and in the end, the parties benefitting from the report’s data can be either an employer or a (previous) employee, depending on which way the case goes. Therefore, this rather complex sense of success is not at all surprising in fact:

Van Noort: At ZoZit’t, success came – the first assignment was fun, but mostly scary – when a verdict came after our report was used in an appeal case, and the court said ‘this is interesting, we can use this well in setting our cadres, how we design and outline our verdicts, and what that is going to do for the compensation’. That gave us official recognition for ZoZit’t.

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A more straightforward, obvious, and slightly more egocentric measure of success is attracting new business. Marijke van Noort clearly indicates she considered herself successful when she closed a new assignment:

R6: That differed from time to time, but initially I found myself successful when I got an assignment.

It seems rather logical that especially in the initial phases of a business an entrepreneur takes success from new business. However, sometimes entrepreneurs take it a step further, and take pride from specific customers, like Kessels did:

R8: I think it’s great to tell the world that we’re working with Qdance, who are known in the industry as an enormous company with knowledge, expanding globally, and they really know how marketing works.

Van de Vooren describes how reaching her targets is a major source of joy in her work, but also, how it allows her to focus towards the next step:

R10: When I reach my targets, when I see many people have followed the tours, I’m jumping of joy. And if that also goes with me having the time to catch my breath, or especially to make new deals, that just gives me so much energy. I’ll be bouncing around until 2.00 in the morning.

In terms of business success, van de Vooren mentions the effectiveness of her team as another source of success:

R10: The most important to me is to have my team do as I say. With that I mean that my staff, the flyer boys, interns, and especially the guides. When I don’t have any shortage or surplus of people, and when a couple of winks gets everything done, which doesn’t allow me to recline but does allow me to enjoy and think an extra step further. That’s when I’ve made it.

Joy in work is something entrepreneurs value a lot, and seems to balance with the financial returns entrepeneurs take out of their business. As entrepreneurs value new business in the initial phase of their company, the value of the financial return makes an immediate impact for some. Van Noort describes:

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R6: At some point, I had €35000 in my account, in a pretty short time period. I bought my first car that I chose myself, which made me realize that money actually buys me stuff, too!

Peter Vork, of Evacon, also describes how he is drawn to the financial returns of owning his own business. However, he immediately juxtaposes his financial motivations with his motivations of impact:

R5: I think I would call myself successful when I’m financially independent… Well, having made enough money, that doesn’t have to be millions, but that you’ve made money from pushing through your own ideas. That your idea is well known, your making an impact, they’re happy with it, and you receive recognition.

Erwin Philips of Talent Masters approaches his success with a different perspective. He does not value his financial returns as much as the joy he takes out of his work. He describes:

R2: You can be successful in many ways: you can be successful by making an enormous amount of money every month, but I have learnt over the years that being successful is something you do with the amount of joy you take out of work.

To some, success can also come as a result of competitive drive. Tuenter of Blauw Gras describes how he strives for an athletic mentality within his business, and how he continuously strives to improve his service and be the best in his field. It is an interesting perspective, as he does mention the financial return of becoming better in this quote, but immediately describes how he reinvests that return into becoming even better, in order to finally become ‘national champion’:

R7: Yes, in the end we want to be the best in what we do. You’ll never be that alone, there are so many awards and elections and so on. But the most important thing to us is to keep improving our work. You need to produce great work in its fundaments, so that bigger advertisers or brands want to work with us, who pay better, so we can hire better, which allows us to improve our work. So that keeps returning. We are currently in a category of clients, you really have to produce top-noth work, because if you don’t a dozen others are ready to do so. Like I said, we did have customers where we bluffed through meetings in the past and you can get around with that. But it doesn’t make you national champion.

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Finally, success can also be situational. As stated before, de Sterke of Universit had a discussion with the shareholders of the company he was previously CFO of. Him following his own beliefs was critical to his feeling of success, as he briefly summarizes:

R4: When I do things, I believe in I am successful.

Summarizing the above findings, we find that entrepreneurs have many different reasons to feel successful. As the last example illustrates, this can be highly situational, and as the example of ZoZit’t illustrates, it can also be rather complex to outsiders. One of the most interesting of findings among this sample is that these motivations can all be placed along a scale of egocentrism versus altruism: some measures of success are clearly egocentric, such as the financial measure, or the measure of joy, whereas other measures, especially the measure of impact, as we have also seen in the motivation to start companies like Evacon and Agroflux. However, it must be recognized that these beliefs and values are not mutually exclusive within the context of egocentrism versus altruism, since many entrepreneurs in the sample consider both impact as well as financial success.

4.1.3 Attitudes

When analyzing the entrepreneurial attitudes within our sample, a clearer link towards the business models can be seen. Most of the entrepreneurs in the sample describe some sort of attitude about the way they went about starting their company, some times more business model specific, or generally directed towards the way they do business. Three types of attitudes that entrepreneurs describe regularly are an ad-hoc attitude, an adaptive attitude, and a team attitude. Illustrating the ad-hoc attitude, Van Noort describes her own style of management as management by hope:

R6: I’m really a manager by hope. There’s a diversity of management styles, and management by hope is one of them and means that you just see what happens.

Philips describes how his and his partner also have an ad hoc attitude. For him this mainly means that he doesn’t like to focus on the long term too much, as he describes:

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R2: My partner is rather ad hoc, and so am I. So we think well about everything, and our decision making is usually very good as well, but it’s very hard to think about what happens in ten years.

Kessels describes his attitude towards founding a tech startup as an adaptive, trial-and-error, hard working approach. His trial and error attitude has a clear link to the way he builds his business models as well, which he describes as follows, and can roughly be translated into working with what you have, until you find what works.

R8: You’re planting a hundred thousand seeds, hoping one yields the magic bean stalk. Other than that, it’s seeing what can be harvested. And that’s also the way we deal with our business models.

Kessels also describes his work ethic:

R8: It’s only going to be a success once you’ve put in ten thousand hours. That goes for the technology, sales, marketing. Buckle up and get into it. We’re not there yet, there’s a long way to go. But in the time I’ve been doing this I’ve seen tens of startups in the festival industry. Everybody likes it, but everybody does face down, and we’re still here.

Okrasinski, of Bike With me, describes her adaptive attitude as well, but also clearly states it derives from her beliefs that 21st_{century business needs to be adaptive to survive:}

R1: Do you know the vuca world – volatile, uncertain, complex, ambiguous – that we’re in… To actually survive in the 21st century is to be adaptive.

Furthermore, Okrasinski describes her attitude towards business as a problem-solving attitude, which means that she will look to provide a human need, and this quote can be linked to her previous one to conclude that she aims to be adaptive in order to always find problems worth solving.

R1: It might not be Bike With Me, it might be some completely different in a different society, but if we find some kind of human need that we're solving...

One other type of attitude that can clearly be found in our data is the mentality of the team. Now, entrepreneurs describe this in many ways. One entrepreneur describes it as an athletic team

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mentality, whereas the other describes how his company is so cooperative; and in fact, almost every entrepreneur in our sample has some opinion on how their team controls their attitude. A few examples of this team attitude come from Joachim de Sterke and Erwin Philips.

R4: I am happy if my people are happy. And I think an organization isn’t built on a CEO or on a beautiful vision – in the end, the people have to execute. When you make sure that you can do this together, as a team, taking on the good and the bad moments – because a startup isn’t always fun, it can be pretty shit some times. […] That makes it really important that you have a good and fun team, that works until 3.00 in the morning if need be. If it’s not necessary, everybody goes home early and enjoys their weekends. That’s really important to me. I find it very important to take good care of my people.

This example clearly illustrates how values and beliefs lead to attitude: the entrepreneur beliefs his team is a source of good business and values togetherness, and as a result the entrepreneur wants to work with that team through the good times and the bad, and make sure to take good care of his people. A different view on the team perspective comes from Philips, who compares an organization to a team of high performing athletes. He values the complementarity of roles and this motivates his team attitude.

R2: I’ve been a coach of a girls’ hockey team for years. I believe you can never do it alone; you always need people around you. Those people are decisive for success. I resist hierarchy, I don’t believe in ‘I’m the CEO so I’m the most important around here’, but I do believe in different roles that have to exist within a firm, like in sports. Not everybody can be a goaltender, not everybody can be a striker – the mix makes the team, and it’s success.

Concluding the topic of entrepreneurial cognitions, a few main types of values, beliefs, and attitudes can be distinguished. In order to attain more concrete answers, entrepreneurial values and beliefs have been researched by analyzing motivations for entrepreneurs. The main findings here is that there are two key motivations for entrepreneurs: a drive for self-employment, based on for

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instance the pursuit of independence or creativity, and a drive to execute an idea, which often stems from a vision to solve a problem or add value in a specific way. Entrepreneurial successes can mostly be placed on a scale of altruism versus egocentrism, where altruistic successes are mostly a form of creating a positive impact for stakeholders like clients, employees, or more idealistically, the environment; egocentric successes can be anything from attracting new business, financial success, or simply taking joy out of work. From analyzing entrepreneurial attitudes in our sample, three interesting findings come forward: the team attitude, where entrepreneurs take a team-first approach, in some cases comparing the team to a high-performance sports team; and secondly, which is an immediate link to the findings regarding the business model design process, the adaptive attitude, and finally the ad-hoc attitude.

4.2 Business models

The business model design process can be a very tacit process for many entrepreneurs, and within our sample it has been found it is different for every entrepreneur and every business. Within this section of the findings, the aim is to analyze not only the business model design process. In order to form a complete story of the way entrepreneurs approach the design of their business models, the opportunity recognition phase and the business model perceptions are also evaluated. This allows for a complete image of factors leading up to the business model design process for different entrepreneurs.

4.2.1 Business model perceptions

One of the main findings regarding entrepreneurs and their business models is that not all entrepreneurs are consciously working with one. Many of the entrepreneurs in the sample ‘just do it’. They think about their value proposition and how to execute this, what their business needs to be successful, however, many don’t think or care about business models in that sense. Van de Vooren clearly states:

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R10: What the relevance [of a business model] is… No, I really don’t do much about with that. I will use my social network; many friends of mine are entrepreneurs. They give me some insight over a dinner. […] I’m starting to get into it, but I really don’t know too much about it. I try to use other people as much as I can. I can’t do it myself, I just don’t find it interesting.

Philips describes how he applies his business model in his daily business as a guideline, but also stresses his gradual business approach and that flexibility of a small business allows for easy deviation of the business model:

R2: For us it’s a guideline, but we prefer to live day by day. If the business model needs adaptation tomorrow because we thought we had to go left, but end up preferring right, then it’s in the flexibility of a small firm to do so.

Van Noort described that for ZoZit’t she really didn’t want to think about a business model. As stated earlier, she likes to approach issues as they arise. In line with that, she didn’t like the idea of the business model her cofounder pushed on, although she does understand the potential of a business model:

R6: I like to tackle issues as they arise. But Ron had always lead large projects with SagEnn, and he knew very well how to handle a lot of business at once. That’s why it was practical to have a business model in place. For me it really wasn’t so necessary, because in the end it cost us a lot of time, the business model. I really didn’t need that.

The above quotes give a quick example of how some entrepreneurs don’t really feel the urge to work with business models as a specific management tool. One other finding when it comes to the perception of business models is that simply not every entrepreneur has the same knowledge, which logically links to the way they apply the business model in their company. Some see a business model simply as a revenue model that can be ‘chosen’, like SaaS or hourly billing.

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4.2.2 Opportunity

One other factor that seems to influence the business model design process is the opportunity that the entrepreneurs decide to exploit. As stated a couple of sections before, there are clearly different motivations for starting a company, that can basically be reduced to the strive for independence: becoming self-employed as an alternative to working for an employer, or the ambition to execute a business idea. Although it seems obvious, the complexity of the opportunity seems to gap the bridge between entrepreneurial motivation and the initial business model and the business model design process. A few of the more complex opportunities that have been exploited are at the base for companies like Agroflux, Universit, Hugo, and the businesses under the Nescio name, due to the combination of the technologies required and the novelty of the offering. Tillema describes how an internship with lithium-iron batteries led him to the idea of seaweed cow feed.

R3: I did an internship at TNO Eindhoven with lithium batteries. Finally, those lithium batteries gave me the idea to use algae as cattle feed, and via those algae I came onto seaweed, which we’ve been working on for a year and a half now.

De Sterke describes the idea of Universit:

R4: You used to have telecom providers selling simcards and ICT providers selling software and hardware like computers and infrastructure. Nowadays, you have devices like laptops and phones which are simultaneously IT and telecom. We built a platform that brings those two sides together, so providers can offer an integrated package of products and services.

Tuenter’s concept for Blauw Gras was comparatively simple, as was van Noort’s Castellum Consult. In both cases the entrepreneurs simply started to sell their own services under a freelance construction, although Blauw Gras eventually grew into a larger company with 16 employees. Both entrepreneurs describe how the foundation of their businesses was opportunity driven:

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R7: The core motivation was that we saw an opportunity to make some money. It could’ve been something totally different.

R6: If I hadn’t gotten an assignment from Epheon, I might just have applied for other jobs as well.

One interesting way entrepreneurs have found opportunities to form new businesses is through the complementarity of the co-founders. Two great examples of this come from Bike With Me and Talent Masters. First of all, Kate Okrasinski of Bike With Me explains how combining her and her co-founder’s knowledge led to the idea for Bike With Me.

R1: Well, Doutzen always worked in HR and relocation, and she herself has worked in three different countries and experienced this tension first hand, so dealing with and helping try to put on activities for partners, she works at each booking.com, put on activities for partners so that they feel included. But everything for her rotated around drinking so whether or not it was coffee or alcohol, that was like the only activities that you could really go to as a partner. And so, she was looking for to create a new opportunity. I had just finished up being a tour guide in Amsterdam City Centre, working like tours with tourists and was starting at huddle as a designer and as strategic design lead. So when we kind of connected together it was like a really good synergy between not only information I brought in, about Dutch history Dutch culture, and my own experience as a foreign local living here and adjusting, but her also market need and market understanding and understanding how this could actually sell in, and work within a large-scale organization. So it was a really perfect blend.

Erwin Philips of Talent Masters describes a similar situation with his business partner. He actually joined an existing company, but the complementarity of knowledge and experience between him and his partner allowed them to create a new, unique offering:

R2: Because Peter was a lecturer at a ROC [community college] he knows vocational education, but he’s also a guest lecturer at the Leiden University of Applied Science. That allows us to provide great support to students. I come from a pure business background. We’re in education with one leg and in business with

Different entrepreneurs, different business models? : An explorative study of the effect of entrepreneurial values, beliefs and attitudes on entrepreneurs' approach to the business model design process