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Msc International Business Management

Msc Advanced International Business Management &

Marketing

Thesis

New Business Models – The Effect of Social Value Orientation on

Cooperative Disposition

University of Groningen Faculty of Economics and Business

Nettelbosje 2, 9747 AE Groningen Netherlands

Newcastle University School of Business 5 Barrack Road, NE1 4SE,

Newcastle upon Tyne United Kingdom

June 2020

By Reinhilde Martine Hogendorp S2972017 / B9019830

61 Boulevard Jourdan, 75014, Paris, (FR) Reinhilde.hogendorp@gmail.com / +33 (0)603426983

Supervisor University of Groningen : Dr. Bartjan Pennink Supervisor Newcastle University : Dr. Alan McKinlay

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PREFACE

Dear reader,

I welcome you to the beginning of the end, my thesis, and the final product of the double degree master programme Advanced International Business Management & Marketing. Five years and many countries and experiences after starting my Bachelor International business in Groningen this is the crown on all I have learned during these valuable years. After starting my studies in International Business I quickly learned about the destructive behaviour of most businesses, and the threat it poses to our natural environment. As companies are the main contributors to global warming and overall climate change, should they with all their power not have a partial responsibility to also ensure a (clean) future for the generations to come? Many assume that companies solely exist in order to generate profit, however, is this a desirable definition? And if not, should we not actively change this definition? My thesis focuses on mapping opinions and disposition towards new business models (NBMs) and the relationship between social value orientations and these innovated ways of organising business and society.

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ABSTRACT

This thesis aims to contribute to the lacking scientific literature on new business models, social value orientation and social entrepreneurship via a combination of a quantitative and qualitative research. The research examines how individuals feel about the desirability and viability of certain alternative business models and whether an individual’s social value orientation influences his or her beliefs on these topics. The qualitative aspect of the research was carried out via interviews, with a total sample of 10, while the quantitative aspect of the research was carried out via an open-question questionnaire with a total sample size of 86. The quantitative data was collected over a period of 10 days in order to give respondents enough time to fill out the questionnaire, while the interviews were carried out over a longer timeframe, due to the limited availability of each of the respondents. Although not all hypotheses proved to be significant, there are implications for organisations and researchers, highlighting the importance of an individual’s social value orientation.

Key words : New Business Models, Social Value Orientation, Sustainability,

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

PREFACE ... 3 ABSTRACT ... 4 TABLE OF CONTENTS ... 5 1. INTRODUCTION ... 6 2. LITERATURE REVIEW ... 10

2.1. The Urgent Need for New Business Models... 10

2.2. The History of Money ... 12

2.3. The Implications of Money on Human Behaviour ... 13

2.4. A Reduced Focus on Money and Profit in Business Models ... 14

2.5. Social Entrepreneurship ... 20

2.6. Social Value Orientation ... 22

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1. INTRODUCTION

“The greatest danger in times of turbulence is not the turbulence; it is to act with yesterday’s logic” – Peter Drucker

The current view we have of the world is a faux view (Jonker, 2012). Because of the insecurities we face in the future world, we stick our heads in the sand and pretend we still live in a world of growing prosperity, like in the time of the second industrial revolution. However, we must face that we no longer live in times of growing prosperity, and that we are rapidly destroying the planet. Greenland and Antarctica, the world’s only two ice sheets, have been shedding 430 billion tons of mass every single year since 2005 (Hood, 2019). This decrease in mass will cause over 300 million people to find themselves in zones of flood by the year 2100. On top of rising sea levels greenhouse gas emissions are also an imperative problem, if these gasses continue to rise as fast as they have been over the past years, global average temperatures will increase by another four degrees by the end of this century, meaning substantial species extinction and global food scarcity risks (Riley, 2017). While this may seem dismal, scientists are also arguing that we might already be on the brink of causing an irreversible change in the world’s climate. However, this should not mean that humanity collectively throws up its hands in despair.

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7 influence in society increased as well. 260 years later our natural and societal environment is drastically different, however, the influence and power of firms and the destructive nature of their business models do not seem to have changed.

Based on an great amount of research, we now know that this old way of working no longer applies to our current world, and thus no longer suffices (Jonker, 2012). The UN secretary general, Ban Ki-Moon, already stated many years ago that the world’s ‘current’ economic model is an environmental “suicide pact” (The Guardian, 2011). This environmental ‘suicide pact’, or our economic model is at the heart of the destructive cycle in which humanity produces, consumes, spills and devastates (Rotmans, 2012). While over the years, the responsibilities and seemingly the sustainability of companies seem to have changed, due to the emergence of theories such as the stakeholder theory (Freeman & Mcvea, 2001) and Corporate social responsibility (CSR). However, the problem of sustainability, defined as using resources to meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs’ (World Commission on Environment and Development, 1987), is far greater than, and cannot be solved by the mere existence of responsibility theories, which are focused on optimization and co-efficiency (Jonker, 2014). The complex nature of the economic system itself requires a fundamental and structural change in the way our economy is structured. While many are currently searching for ways of shaping another way of working, living and being, and the products and services we purchase, and therefore, the companies we interact with are central at changing these ways. If humanity is serious about ‘saving’ the world, a more deeply rooted movement towards sustainability is imperative.

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8 away from the old system, a major drawback is that these hybrid models’ judgement of performance is still based on financial measures. Because of this unchanged performance metric, firms are faced with a trade-off in which they either choose the maximisation of profit or the allocation of resources for the creation of other forms of value, which would decrease the firms profit.

As may seem obvious by now, we need to rethink the purpose and ways of doing business and almost every aspect of how it is conducted (Bocken, et al., 2014), which can only be done through innovation of business models, which requires the re-conceptualising of the purpose of a firm and its value creating logic, as well as rethinking the perceptions of what value really is.

This is a decidedly relevant topic, as several different forms of new business models have been popping up over the years, however, have been faced with underestimation or lack of interest in literature. By gathering opinions and attitudes on several forms of new business models, as well as the effect of social orientation we can further gain insight on how current and future response may be, and how to adequately deal with these. This thesis aims to explore this relationship between social value orientations and the disposition towards cooperation in new business models (NMBs). Specifically, it investigates the following research question:

What are attitudes towards alternative or ‘new’ business models and does social orientation affect these attitudes?

To answer this research question, several sub-questions are formed:

1. Are alternative business models seen as desirable for implementation in society?

2. Are alternative business models seen as viable for implementation in society? 3. Does the social orientation of people affect their disposition towards

alternative business models?

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9 Furthermore, while there has been substantial research on social value orientations, the literature on the connection with new business models is thin, and deserves to be expanded. Consequently, the innovation of business models is being increasingly recognised as a key to creating greater system-wide social and environmental sustainability (Lüdeke-Freund, 2012). However, while this recognition exists, understanding of sustainable new business models and the availability of options for innovations for sustainability seem limited (Bocken, et al., 2014). Several potentially new and sustainable business models have been covered in literature, such as closed-loop models (Wells & Seitz, 2005) and social enterprises (Grassl, 2012), however, many other concepts can be seen in practice, of which some will be used and discussed in this paper.

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2. LITERATURE REVIEW

The literature review focuses on money and its role in new and future business models. First, the urgent need for new business models will be expressed, followed by the contrast with more traditional business models. Second, the history of money will be reviewed in order to full understand its role in society and the following section concerning its implications on human behaviour. This will be followed by several new business models with a reduced focus on money, and lastly, a review of social entrepreneurship and social value orientation will be discussed before continuing with the methodology.

2.1. The Urgent Need for New Business Models

As aforementioned, it is imperative to radically change our way of thinking, living and being, therefore changing the current ways of doing business. While green companies and supposedly green products are becoming more popular, the rather conventional business process involved remains the same, that is, doing business in a transaction model that is solely based on money (Jonker, 2012). Instead of achieving change on the whole spectrum of the value chain, the focus is laid on greenifying the business output, the product or service. Instead of this first generation thinking of sustainability, a full revamp of the meaning of a business model is required, thus a new business model.

“A business model is a conceptual tool to help understand how a firm does business and can be used for analysis, comparison and performance assessment, management, communication, and innovation (Osterwalder, et al., 2005). Business models refer to how a firm defines its competitive strategy through the design of its product or service, how much it charges for it, what the production costs are, how the firm differentiates itself from other firms, and how the firm integrates its own value chain within the broader value network (Rasmussen, 2007), thus ultimately a blueprint of the firm. According to Johnson and Suskewicz, business model innovation embodies shifting the focus away from developing individual technologies towards creating entirely new systems (Johnson & Suskewicz, 2009). The business model is not solely company-focused, but encompasses a wider range of stakeholders, creating the need for a broader value-network perspective for innovating and transforming the current conventional business model (Sommer, 2012) (Jonker, 2014).

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11 profit, to a focus on three values; economic, social and environmental performance. Businesses incorporating the triple bottom line into their organisation should allocate substantial resources to the social and environmental value they wish to create, besides the common focus on economic performance. The three dimensions of the triple bottom are intertwined and continually affect each other, therefore, the lack one will result in a decline of all, through positive feedback and mutual causality (McKelvey, 2002). The triple bottom line caused business model innovation across varying industries, although not without struggle.

Whether a new business model is created accidentally, or ‘on the street’ as referred to by Jonker, or systematically, is it vital that if a new business model is going to be sustainable, it must offer an innovative value proposition. As stressed by Jonker (2012), developing a new business model is certainly not about just creating or organizing something new within a particular company or organization, however, it is rather about collective change among the whole value network. This value network, as opposed to the value chain, is characterized by a relatively high level of equality among parties. Lasting and sustainable change is therefore derived from the engagement and participation of the whole network, not just one party. Building further on the notion of equality of the network, the thinking behind these new business models comes from the fact that different parties establish a relationship of mutual responsibility, and creating value together as opposed to one party creating value and another profiting of the already created value.

A central characteristic of these new business models is the reduced role of money, and the increased use of different definitions of value. Characterized by including not only money, but also the social values of capital, networks, attention and others, many new business models offer alternative payment methods, ranging from credits or points to people’s time or social media presence (Jonker, 2012). Thus, in new business models, money is no longer the all-decisive central factor, forcing us to rethink what is actually of value.

2.1.1. The Infancy of New and Sustainable Business Models

Although there has been substantial literature on the topic of business models, the literature on what constitutes a business model innovation is still considered more ambiguous (Bocken, et al., 2014). Often business model innovation has been framed in a change of value proposition for the customer, however, a true business model innovation constitutes more than a mere change in what a business does, rather it involves changing the way of doing business, and thus must go beyond process and products (Amit & Zott, 2012).

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12 and fixated on maximising societal and environmental benefits, as opposed to the sole and historic focus on economic gain (Bocken, et al., 2014).

2.2. The History of Money

“money makes the world go round”

In order to fully grasp the meaning of today’s understanding of money we must start at the concept of Barter. Barter refers to exchange of goods or services for other goods or services without the use of money. The history of barter is long, and in some respects than the recorded records of man himself (Davies, 1994). The direct exchange of resources and services is intrinsic to the symbiotic relationships evident in nature, it thus being no surprise that barter in some form is older than mankind. While it may seem surprising that such a primeval form of exchange could exist up until present time, this is without doubt due to the crudely robust and adaptable nature of barter. Throughout the greatest part of mankind’s development, barter represented the sole means of exchanging goods and services. As the complexity of trade increased, the various systems of barter naturally grew along in order to accommodate these transactions, until the demands of trade exceeded the scope of barter. With more commodities being traded, the drawbacks of barter clearly came to light, and the development of money originated to simplify the then rather troublesome task of barter (Davies, 1994). According to Davies, money did not originate from economic reasons, but rather from legal, religious, and ceremonial processes within societies. Loving and fighting are the oldest and most exciting of mankind’s activities, it thus being perfectly natural to find that payments with both were among the earliest forms of modern money. While different societies developed money independently, many shared similar cultural practices responsible for emphasizing the need of a standardized currency (Skaggs, 2014). Examples of these cultural practices were the customary payment of a groom to a bride’s family in order to compensate for the financial loss of their daughter, or the amends made by a criminal to those affected by his or her crimes. Because of the one-sided nature of these transaction, the formation of money was triggered, as they would have been difficult to complete through barter.

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13 making payments and accounting for debts and credits”. After the use of primitive and ancient money, advancement was relatively quickly made when coinage was invented in the 5th or 6th century BC in Greece. After this revolutionary invention,

money was quickly adopted by societies around the world, from its start in Ionian Greece, spread through both Greek and Roman networks throughout Europe and the world. After the expansion of trade and finance during the second half of the 14th

century, the invention of printing as an alternative to minting ignited the birth of modern banking and money usage.

The history of money is long and complex, and often not agreed upon by academics, due to its diverse and useful nature. However, what is not twisted by anyone, is the incredible personal and moral significance of money in society. While money can be used to achieve many positive outcomes, there is also a ‘dark side’ to this invention of modern man.

2.3. The Implications of Money on Human Behaviour

“the love for money is the root of all evil”- Timothy 6:10

First of all, we must clarify the commonly used and aforementioned term ‘money’. What most people see as money is actually fiat money, or a currency that is issued by governments but not backed by a physical commodity, such as silver or gold . The value of fiat money is therefore derived from the government that issued the currency, as well as being reinforced by the people using it (Chen, 2019). On the other hand, the real meaning of the term money is closer to “a generally accepted medium of exchange that is used as financial payment” (Platan, 2000). Hereafter, I will be using the term money when referring to cash or fiat currency, and the term alternative money will be used for alternative payment methods. Because of this widened definition, money can take more unorthodox forms (Skaggs, 2014). While money is needed in society in order to facilitate exchange between entities, the role of fiat money may be less necessary and may even carry more negative aspects rather than benefits.

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14 had higher empathic accuracy, meaning that they were better at reading other people’s emotions on their faces (Kraus, et al., 2010). However, the controversy and negative aspects of what we call money does not end by merely owning money. According to Kouchaki et al., the merely thinking about money may lead to unethical behaviour (Kouchaki, et al., 2013). In their study, the researchers found that people who were exposed to ‘financial phrases’ were more likely to lie in subsequent activities if they knew doing so would earn them more money. Based on these unfavourable aspects that money has on human behaviour, one may question whether money is truly a necessary component of every transaction, and just because it can, whether it should have such a hefty role in business models?

2.4. A Reduced Focus on Money and Profit in Business Models

In order to thrive, a business needs to offer surplus value to society. Whether this value is derived from the products or services produced or other factors is not necessarily important. What is important is the fact that this surplus value needs to exist, without any added value, there is no incentive for consumers to purchase from a particular company. However, this surplus value does not need to expressed in a money.

As mentioned in the previous section, while money may have originated from convenience, in today’s world, money is the cause of an array of negative variables. As emphasis is put on other forms of payment, there is a reduced need for cash in new business models. As aforementioned, alternative money may also be used. For example, during the economic slowdown during the early 2010s, a Westfield Park Group in San Diego organized babysitting based on the use of tokens gained through childcare, rather than cash. The basic premise was that tokens could only be earned through providing childcare, thus meaning that the more someone provided childcare, the more he or she would have available for her own needs (Skaggs, 2014). This relatively small scale example shows that a system with a reduced focus on money or completely without the use of money may be less impossible than some people deem it to be. Other examples of new business models in which there is a reduced focus on money are concepts such as Tellinger’s Ubuntu Village, the Walden Experiment, and a co-operation. These and three more concepts will be reviewed in the next sections, in order to give a complete overview before diving into the methodology.

2.4.1. Ubuntu Village

“I am because we are” – Ernest Johnson

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15 Ubuntu comes from a Zulu term for “humanity towards others”, and is a philosophy of human development that recognises the humanity of all members of a community (Urban Renaissance Center, 2019). The concept of Ubuntu is grounded in the belief that all people are connected in a common network and that the thriving of one member depends on the thriving of all other members. Based on these principles, the Ubuntu village is a community transformation project. The man at the forefront of spreading the philosophy of Ubuntu, is Michael Tellinger. After having developed the concept of Ubuntu contributionism, claiming it being a social movement promoting communities thriving without money. Within these communities every member contributes their abilities, skills and talents on an equal bases and as a result of this the community prospers (WOUB public media, 2016).

2.4.2. The Walden Experiment

During the end of the 19th century, idealistic, anarchistic and socialist residential

communities gained quickly in popularity. The world as people knew it was rapidly changing, factories popping up left and right, instead of daylight the clock on the wall now determined life, which was not to everyone’s liking. People who were less attracted to this new hectic life wanted to escape this world and find happiness far away from it, as authors such as Henry David Thoreau and later Frederik van Eeden did (Vereniging Vrienden van het Spiegel, 2012) (IsGeschiedenis, 2012).

Being inspired by Thoreau’s 1854 iconic book, Walden, van Eeden was inspired to live a more ‘secluded’ life. While walking with his family in the woods between Elspeet and Nunspeet, van Eeden saw a hut colony that had formed there, and after seeing such a thing, the dream for his own colony was born. Over the next few months, the idea started to take real form, and van Eeden wrote to a friend saying that he found his house too big and his life too wasteful. He thought he’d be happier in an alternative society based on the principles of socialism.

That same year van Eeden put his words into action and founded the socialist colony ‘Walden’ on the Bussum estate Cruysenberg. The newly formed horticultural community accommodated dozens of people and the newly formed group lived according to the principles of communal ownership. In order to strive for the ultimate freedom, Walden had no singular boss or leader, but instead everything was decided together.

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16 nature of the product, however since the demand for white bread was far greater as compared to other types of bread, they soon had no choice.

In the end, van Eeden himself called the experiment a failure, as the colony had never been able to be self-sufficient in the end. Besides not being financially independent, and depending on borrowings from van Eeden’s family, the mutual distrust between van Eeden and the members of the colony grew, as he had affairs with several women and occasionally went on holiday, while the rest of the colony continued to put in hard work for the ‘greater good’. Because of these and other accumulating problems, Walden finally closed its doors in 1907, as everyone went back to their ‘regular’ lives (Historiek, 2019) (Noord-Hollands Archief, 2010).

2.4.3. The Auravana Project

According to Auravana’s global website, “the Auravana project exists to co-create the new emergence of community through the openly shared design, construction, and operation of a socio-economically unified network of integrated city systems in which purposefully driven individuals are fulfilled in their development toward a higher potential state of human experience for themselves and all others” (The Auravana Project, 2014).

The members involved in the Auravana project aim to create an automated, moneyless society, which should be oriented towards human fulfilment and ecological sustainability. The founders believe that due to the current technological power, humans have the need and the ability to rapidly evolve collective values and the way we as a species navigate through life.

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17 ▪ A social system specification

▪ A decision system specification ▪ A lifecycle system specification ▪ A material system specification These four specifications specify the composition and operation of an ‘adaptive community’ at a practical level, composed of a network of socio-economically integrated city systems. These specifications therefore describe what is required to construct and operate such a community.

2.4.4. Universal Basic Income

“those unwilling to work will not get to eat” – 2 Thessalonians 3:10

After the western welfare states matured during the 1980s, there has been no new implementation of new innovative social programmes. While the labour market and economy have been rapidly changing, the social protection systems in place have received no or only minor modification. After the 2008 global economic crisis, a dominating policy has been concentrated around cutting public expenditure and narrowing the eligibility criteria for already existing benefit systems (Perkiö & Koistinen, 2014). However, despite of this global trend of cutbacks, there have been new initiatives to introduce fundamental social security reforms. An idea that seems to be persisting in Europe, and by now has reached North America as well, is the universal basic income (BI). The universal basic income refers to “an income granted to all members of society as a right without means testing or conditions” (Perkiö & Koistinen, 2014).

“In times of uncertainty and crisis, radical ideas are suddenly pulled out of the hat” (Bregman, 2020). In recent weeks, due to the crisis of Covid-19, new calls for a basic income have been louder than ever. In the US, president Donald Trump has announced and signed for a $2 trillion stimulus package, which will provide a cheque of $1,200 for most Americans. Closer to home, the conservative party in the UK is also considering a temporary basic universal income. The prevailing sentiment in society seems to be that people in poverty cannot handle money, after all, if they knew how to, how could they be poor to begin with? In recent years, the assistance provided by governments has been increasingly anchored in employment, with recipients required to return to work programmes, apply for a range of jobs and take part in mandatory ‘volunteer’ work. The underlying message of this approach is

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18 clear: free money makes people lazy (Bregman, 2020). Studies worldwide offer proof positive: free money works (Haushofer & Shapiro, 2013) (Blattman, et al., 2013) (Green, et al., 2015).

The concept of social innovation, on which the universal basic income is based, has been widely used in referring to innovations aiming to “produce long lasting outcomes that are relevant for (parts of) society, given the needs and challenges with which (groups in) society wrestling …[to]… create and add to public values that are considered important” and to “change the social relationships and the ‘playing rules’ between the involved stakeholders” (Bekkers, et al., 2013). In order for such a social innovation to be sustainable, the concept must be widely adopted among members of society, albeit individuals, groups, organizations, or national policies. The sustainable adoption of a social innovative concept is comparable to herd immunization, at a certain point the innovation reaches critical mass, and from this tipping point the number of adopters ensures that the continued adoption is self-sustaining (Rogers, 1962) (Wejnert, 2006).

The advantage of money over other things such as products or services, as is the case in universal basic income, is that people can use the money to buy things they need instead of things that self-appointed experts think they need. While there is plenty of research that shows that universal basic income could work, this does not mean it should be implemented without forethought. So-called utopias such as a basic income should start out small, with experiments ever so slowly changing the world as we know it.

2.4.5. The Co-operation

“Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much” – Helen Keller Co-operatives occupy a strong position in many sectors, especially in the agriculture industry, in which 30-70% of the European and North-American market used to be represented by co-operatives (Nilsson, 2001). Although this percentage has slightly decreased since then, the strength of the co-operative remains substantial.

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19 From the outside a co-operative may seem very similar to any other type of corporation, however when looking closely, or learning about the ‘behind the scenes’ of a co-op, it is evident that a co-op is run quite different from other types of organisations (National Cooperative Business Association CLUSA International, 2018). The individuals behind co-operatives come together because they have similar values they wish to pursue, such as self-help, self-responsibility, equity, equality, and solidarity.

A crucial difference between a conventional corporation and a co-op is the fact that for other types of (public) corporations, how much say or control someone has in the company depends how large their ownership stake is. However, in the case of a co-operative, as equity and equality are among the founding and most vital principles, each member-owner gets one vote, and the opinion of one member-owner does not weigh more than another’s.

Co-operatives exist in order to realise economic, cultural, and social needs in the organisation’s environment. Co-operatives often have a very strong commitment to their surrounding community and have a focus on strengthening this community. If the co-operative does well economically, the whole community surrounding it benefits, as opposed to just a small group of shareholders. The sustainability of a co-operative does not just lie in its communal nature, but rather in its organisation. Due to the structure of the co-op, it can survive even once all the original members have moved on. When a member moves out of the area, is no longer interested or dies, they can sell their stake or membership to someone else, every member keeps having a singular vote, thus not changing the original structure, ensuring sustainability over the years.

2.4.6. A Commune

A commune refers to a large gathering of people sharing a common life; from the Latin word communis, or things held in common. In light of recent social isolation, which has also been rapidly spreading before the current Covid-19 pandemic, communities built on a shared ethos are sprouting up (Bearne, 2018). These communal models have a wide range from completely living ‘off the grid’, or not being connected to basic services, to “cohousing” schemes, a model centred around communities with private properties but where the members chip in together to pay for communal facilities. According to Coates (2018), the number of people interested in communal living has been slowly growing, claiming that “There’s a much wider definition of what communal living entails these days, and a wider range of people who are doing it than there were in the 1970s” (Coates, 2018).

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20 States are the so-called “Utopian communities” although these days they prefer to call themselves “egalitarian” or “intended” communities (Reece, 2016). As there exists such a wide range of communes, it is practically impossible to generalize the used principles, however, all of them are based on the overarching principle of some sort of shared income and labour, often, however not always, advocating non-violence and ecological sustainability.

2.5. Social Entrepreneurship

In order for social and sustainable business model innovation and such new business models to occur and be created, individuals with innovative and social values must be present, thus enter the social entrepreneur. Research on social entrepreneurship has been expanding over the last three decades, however the field still seems to lack empirical and analytical rigour in order to become a fully established field of research (Short, et al., 2009) (Mair & Marti, 2006) (Mair, 2006). Although the term of ‘social entrepreneur’ was established in the 1970s, in the past 15 years the term has gained traction within society. There has been a variety of accelerators causing the recent popularity of social entrepreneurship, however, most notably, the demand for social and environmental action has increased as crises worldwide have proliferated and deepened in impact. Examples of such crises include current health pandemics, increasing migration, nuclear instability, global warming and many more (Nicholls, 2011). According to Mair et al. (2006), there is substantial dispute on what exactly defines social entrepreneurship and what its scope entails, and after reviewing the current literature the lack of a general definition of social entrepreneurship becomes evident.

The interpretation of social entrepreneurship varies among scholars, as there exists a wide range of applications in literature and research (Dees, 1998). Because of this variety, roughly three streams of thought among scholars seem to exist. First, a group believes that social entrepreneurs use their respective comprehensive understanding and creativity in order to detect and consequently improve social problems in the form of a sustainable transformation (Alvord, et al., 2004). Second, another stream of thinking claims that social entrepreneurs and social entrepreneurship as a whole is responsible for actors who are incorporated in companies which operate in market partnerships (Sagawa & Segal, 2000). The third and last stream of academics believes that social entrepreneurship can only happen in a business unit by introducing a non-economic organization that implements funding strategies in order to develop social value (Boschee, 1998).

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21 certain mission in mind based on which they create sustainable social value. However, because all individuals have differing norms and values, so do social entrepreneurs. What should also be noted is that while social entrepreneurs might be creating social value for a variety of groups and/or actors, accounting is still done by investors, usually based on financial measures (Dees, 1998).

The larger entity, the social enterprise, also has a variety of values based on the social entrepreneur’s intention (Singh, 2016). These enterprises may have several different purposes, such as creating social, economic, or ecological values, however, it is usually mainly driven by a singular value (Alter, 2006). Social enterprises may be for-profit or not-for-profit, because although a profit might be made, the social enterprise still provides social inclusion (Drucker, 1994). The social entrepreneur may aim for monetary profits, however, the social value is integrated in some way within the business model (Cone, et al., 2003) (Peredo & McLean, 2006).

As interpersonal differences exist, different types of entrepreneurs can also be identified. According to Zahra et al. (2009), there are three different types of social entrepreneurs. First of all, the social bricoleur. The social bricoleur is rather small-scale and its scope is local. Social enterprises connected to this sort of entrepreneurship typically address local social needs, which will require some sort of tacit prior knowledge. Second, the social constructionist. The social constructionist’s scale is slightly broader, ranging from both small and large scale and this type of entrepreneur has a broader market focus as compared to the social bricoleur. This type of social entrepreneur concerns him/herself mainly with local problems and solutions, although it can be scaled up to other industries or neighbouring geographical areas. The last social entrepreneur is known as the social engineer. The social engineer has the desire to follow very broad social aims, and in order to gain organisational legitimacy the institutional structures present must be changed. The entrepreneur aims to challenge the so-called ‘rules of the game’, or the way current institutions function, and aims to change or replace these (Zahra, et al., 2009).

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22 2.6. Social Value Orientation

In daily life people often encounter mixed-motive social dilemmas (Komorita & Parks, 1994), situations present themselves in which a person’s immediate self-interest is at odds with what is best for others, let that be their relationships, community, or nation (Balliet, et al., 2009). Situations as these occur more than people may realize and may be as irrelevant as deciding who will take out the trash, whether to donate money to charity, or voting in an election. Previous research on this topic has found that there is a considerable variation in the behaviour displayed in these situations.

Early research on social value orientation (SVO) was pioneered by Messick and McClintock (1968), who, in their research, used a technique for measuring motives in social dilemmas known as the ‘decomposed game’ (Balliet, et al., 2009) (Messick & McClintock, 1968). Their research led to the discovery of individual differences in social value orientation (SVO), which refers to “the weight people assign to their own and others’ outcomes in situations of interdependence” (Balliet, et al., 2009). Over the past 50 years research has attempted to link social value orientation with a range of different behaviour in social dilemmas.

In many social dilemmas ultimately a choice has to be made, which is where rational choice theory comes into play. Narrow self-interest is central to this theory, in which the assumption is that the decision makers are concerned about maximising their own gain, independent of the payoffs that other decision makers receive (Murphy, et al., 2011). However, this assumption is oversimplified, and reliable counterexamples demonstrate that decision makers’ preferences and thus their choices are often influenced partially by the payoffs other decision makers receive, ultimately challenging what has been named the selfish axiom (Heinrich, et al., 2005) (Murphy, et al., 2011).

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23 the individual wishes to minimise the difference between their own payoff and the payoff of others (McClintock & Scott, 1989). The aforementioned assumption of a narrow self-interest is a particular social value orientation, namely an individualistic orientation, and the theory of social value orientation does therefore not necessarily challenge the rational choice theory, but rather provide an extension in the form of an increased psychological realism and descriptive accuracy (Murphy, et al., 2011). According to De Dreu et al., social value orientations have been found to influence people’s cognitions and can account for a behaviour across various contexts of interpersonal decision making (De Dreu & Boles, 1998) and resource dilemmas often present in modern society (Roch, et al., 2000) (Roch & Samuelson, 1997) (Samuelson, 1993). A consistent finding in the research of social value orientation is that cooperative behaviour is least likely to be displayed by people with an individualistic social value orientation and most likely by those classified as co-operators. As many new business models require increased cooperation and focus on networks, one may suspect that individualistic individuals will also be more negatively dispositioned towards these business models as to compared to more cooperatively-oriented individuals.

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24

4. METHODOLOGY

The following section contains the research strategy used to find answers for the research- and the related sub-questions. Firstly, the research method will be described, which is used within the extent of this paper and its accompanying research. Next, the samples being used, the data collection method for analysis will be discussed, after which the quality standards, more specifically the reliability, validity, generalisability and transparency will be discussed. Lastly, the development of the questionnaire and the limitations of such will be discussed as well.

4.1. Research Method

This research project uses a combination of both qualitative and quantitative research methods. This is done in order to capitalize advantages from both methods. Within the scope of qualitative research, qualitative researchers may be interested in the motivations, beliefs and actions of individuals, organisations or other entities and study these using a mixture of interviews, observations and insights gained from existing written material. The subjects studied in qualitative research may vary from ‘mere’ individual behaviour to the functioning of complex systems, however, in essence, qualitative research aids in understanding the strength, nature and interaction of variables (Lakshman, et al., 2000).

On the other hand, quantitative methods examine the effects of certain, specified circumstances (independent variable(s)) on an outcome of interest (dependent variable(s)), in ways that can be expressed numerically. In quantitative research, causal inferences are drawn from either direct observation or through statistical analysis, the last being the case in this research paper. According to Lakshman et al. one may benefit enormously from the combination of quantification and qualitative analysis. Qualitative methods can supplement and complement the understandings revealed by the done quantitative analysis. While there are significant distinctions between both methodological approaches, both possess structures and means of evaluation, which, when applied correctly, may be rigorous (Lakshman, et al., 2000). In order to correctly present the features of both quantitative and qualitative research methodologies, a summary can be seen below, as adapted by Miles and Huberman (Miles & Huberman, 1994).

Qualitative research Quantitative Research

The aim of the research is to provide a complete and detailed description

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25 Researcher may only roughly know

what he/she is looking for, hypotheses are not usually formed upfront

Researcher knows upfront what he/she is looking for, hypotheses are usually formed upfront

Recommended during earlier phases of research

Recommended during latter phases of research

Design emerges as the research unfolds All aspects of study are designed before data is collected

Researcher is data gathering instrument Data is in the form of numbers and statistics

Subjective – individual interpretation is important

Objective – seeks precise measurement and analysis

More ‘rich’, time-consuming and less able to generalisable

More efficient, able to test hypotheses, may miss contextual detail

Researcher may become subjectively immersed in subject matter

Researcher tends to remain objectively separated from the subject matter

Figure 2: Features of Qualitative and Quantitative Research

While in quantitative research, hypotheses are usually set up front, in qualitative research this is not often the case. More often, due to the inductive nature of reasoning, hypotheses are created are rebuilt during the analysis of the research. The aim in most qualitative research is to find and interpret yet unknown relationships, which are gathered from studying the subjects in a natural context, minimising the influence the researcher has on the responses (Eriksson & Kovalainen, 2008). Although one of the main drawbacks of qualitative research is the lack of generalisability to a larger population (Yin, 2003), however, within the extent of this research, the author is not as much concerned with the generalisability, as the study has a more exploratory nature, aiming to describe a phenomenon of interest on which to date has received to little research.

4.1.1. Social Value Orientation Slider

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26 The SVO slider works as follows. The respondent or decision-maker is first shown

a short explanation about the question and what the task at hand is.

After reading this description the decision-maker will work through the six items in the block in which he or she has to allocate their payoff x, and the payoff of the other (unknown) party, which is equal to 100 – x (Murphy, et al., 2011).

The six primary slider items that will be used in this research were derived from the six lines that fully interconnect the four points corresponding to the most common idealized social value orientations reported in literature, namely altruistic, prosocial, individualistic, and competitive, as can be seen in figure 4 below.

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27 There are several advantages to using the SVO slider tool. First of all, the fact that the responses can be evaluated for transitivity. While social value orientation is a matter of subjective preferences, all these preferences combined together should conform to the elemental requirement of transitivity, therefore random responding would likely result in an intransitive set of responses. Second, the responses give a full ranking of preferences over motivations, and third, the SVO slider measure can be used to yield one single index of different social value orientations, which is obtained as follows. First, the mean allocation of self (𝐴̅𝑠) is calculated as well as the mean allocation for the other party (𝐴̅𝑜). After this basic calculation, 50 is subtracted in order to shift the base of the resulting angle to the centre of the circle (50,50), as can be seen in figure 4. As a last step, the inverse tangent of the ratio between these means is calculated, using the formula shown below, resulting in a person’s SVO single index.

𝑆𝑉𝑂° = arctan ((𝐴̅𝑜 − 50) (𝐴̅𝑠− 50)

This format is highly sensitive to individual differences on the SVO scale and yields an individual-level score at the ratio level of measurement.

In order to classify respondents on the SVO scale, classification boundaries have been established. If a respondent would always select the options that maximised the allocation for the other party, he resulting angle would be 61.39°, indicating perfect altruism. A prosocial decision-maker with inequality aversion, would yield an able of 37.48°, while a prosocial decision-maker who strived for joint gain (and is inequality tolerant), would yield an angle between 37.09° and 52.91°. The reasoning behind this range is that this decision-maker would be completely indifferent across the whole SVO slider item that has a slope of – 1 (thus, the item with a endpoints 100,50 and 50,100) as the sum is constant. The perfect individualist would yield an angle between −7.82° and 7.82°. The reasoning behind this range is that this decision-maker would be completely indifferent across the range of outcomes in the SVO slider items that has an undefined slope (endpoints 85,85 and 85,15). Lastly, the perfectly consistent competitor yields an angle of −16.26°.

Based on these perfect scenarios, the boundaries for each category can be derived by bisecting the respective adjacent ranges (Murphy, et al., 2011), which are summarized in the figure below

Altruistic Angle greater than 57.15°

Prosocial Angles between 22.45° and 57.15° Individualists Angles between −12.04° and 22.45° Competitors Angles less than −12.04°

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28 As can be derived from figure 4 and visually seen in figure 3, the items are not symmetrically distributed around the whole ring, the reason being that only an asymmetric set of items is used. The usage of only asymmetric items is that the hull of possible scores is squishes in one corner of the circle, however, as Murphy et al. established, this does not adversely affect the validity of the SVO slider measure. In order to properly display the SVO slider questions, a specific HTML coding was used, which can, for reproductive purposes, be found in appendix C.

4.2. Sample

4.2.1. Closed-question sample

The sampling strategy used for the quantitative scope of this research was convenience based. Convenience or availability sampling is a non-probability sampling method that in essence relies on data collection from population members who are conveniently available to participate in a study (Saunders, et al., 2012). In this type of sampling, the first available primary data source will be used for the research without additional requirements, in order words, the researcher finds participants wherever he or she can find them and where typically is convenient. In convenience sampling no inclusion or exclusion criteria are identified prior to the selection of subjects and all subjects are invited to participate.

While certainly having disadvantages, such as the lack of generalisability, according to Saunders et al., convenience sampling certainly has merits as well. Besides being less expensive than other sampling strategies, the data collection can also be facilitated in a relatively short period of time, while also being helpful for pilot studies and hypothesis generation (Saunders, et al., 2012).

4.2.2. Open-question sample

The sampling strategy used for the qualitative aspect of the research is comparably convenience-based, that is, the sample comes from within the social circle of the author. However, unlike complete convenience based sampling, without any criteria for participation, for the interviews only students enrolled in a business or economics course were sampled. This was done in order to ensure some level of basic knowledge about business models, functioning of transactions and the role of businesses within society.

4.3. Data Collection

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29 are hereafter combined to form the topic of this research, based on which two questionnaires are constructed through which primary data is gathered and interpreted.

The most common method for quantitative data collection is to publish questionnaires, while interviews hold the place for most used qualitative data collection method. In this research, both these methods will be combined in order to capitalize on the gains and advantages of both methodologies.

4.4. Data Analysis

Data analysis refers to the reduction of gathered data by creating summaries, analysing similarities and contradictions and using statistical techniques (Cooper & Schindler, 2005). Within the scope of this research paper, both linguistic and numerical data will be used as a primary data source. The linguistic data was captured during the interviews held, while the numerical data originated from the closed-question questionnaire.

As linguistic data is analysed differently from numerical data, two approaches will be used. Firstly, the interviews held will have to be interpreted in order to draw conclusions and provide implications for the development of future business models (Patton, 2002). Secondly, the numerical data will be analysed based on two levels of analysis, namely descriptive statistics and inferential analysis. At the first level, the descriptive statistics provide absolute numbers to summarize individual variables and find patterns within the data. At the second level, thus the inferential analysis, relationships or links between multiple variables will be made to try and generalise results and provide predictions.

4.4.1. Qualitative Data Analysis

The analysis of the qualitative section of the research started with a clear structure of the interviews, which included the naming of 5 keywords for each alternative business model, as well as providing reasons why certain models were desirable and viable according to the interviewees. The qualitative part of the research serves as both an extension to the quantitative analysis, as well as an initial base for forming hypotheses, in further answering the roughly set exploratory hypotheses at the beginning of this paper.

4.4.2. Quantitative Data Analysis

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30 𝐻1 ∶ ℎ𝑖𝑔ℎ𝑒𝑟 𝑆𝑉𝑂 𝑎𝑛𝑔𝑙𝑒 𝑙𝑒𝑎𝑑𝑠 𝑡𝑜 𝑖𝑛𝑐𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑠𝑒𝑑 𝑑𝑒𝑠𝑖𝑟𝑎𝑏𝑖𝑙𝑖𝑡𝑦 𝑜𝑓 𝑈𝐵𝐼

𝐻2: ℎ𝑖𝑔ℎ𝑒𝑟 𝑆𝑉𝑂 𝑎𝑛𝑔𝑙𝑒 𝑙𝑒𝑎𝑑𝑠 𝑡𝑜 𝑖𝑛𝑐𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑠𝑒𝑑 𝑑𝑒𝑠𝑖𝑟𝑎𝑏𝑖𝑙𝑖𝑡𝑦 𝑜𝑓 𝐶𝑜𝑜𝑝𝑒𝑟𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑣𝑒 𝐻3: ℎ𝑖𝑔ℎ𝑒𝑟 𝑆𝑉𝑂 𝑎𝑛𝑔𝑙𝑒 𝑙𝑒𝑎𝑑𝑠 𝑡𝑜 𝑖𝑛𝑐𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑠𝑒𝑑 𝑜𝑝𝑒𝑛𝑛𝑒𝑠𝑠 𝑡𝑜 𝑢𝑠𝑒 𝑜𝑓 𝑏𝑎𝑟𝑡𝑒𝑟 𝐻4: ℎ𝑖𝑔ℎ𝑒𝑟 𝑆𝑉𝑂 𝑎𝑛𝑔𝑙𝑒 𝑙𝑒𝑎𝑑𝑠 𝑡𝑜 𝑖𝑛𝑐𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑠𝑒𝑑 𝑛𝑒𝑒𝑑 𝑓𝑜𝑟 𝐵𝑀 𝑟𝑒𝑑𝑒𝑠𝑖𝑔𝑛

As aforementioned, the higher the SVO angle is, the more altruistic an individual is, or behaves, thus by being more altruistic, or social, the researcher expects that individuals are more open to alternative business models, and the more individuals believe that traditional business models should be redesigned, as these business models are traditionally based on the notion of greed at any cost.

Before the uploading of the questionnaire a first pilot was tested on a group of 10 students, from which feedback was gathered, analysed and integrated so as to create an understandable questionnaire. After this, the questionnaire was held for a total of 10 days in order to give respondents enough time to fill in their answers, during which a reminder was given 5 days in. After the deadline of the questionnaire, a total of 100 responses were recorded, however, after accounting for error and incomplete responses, the sample was equal to 86. The data analysis started with coding the different variables in order to be able to analyse them using statistical analysis. After coding, the social value orientation of the respondents was calculated by hand, and all variables were uploaded to statistical software SPSS, after which several descriptive statistics were calculated. In order to gain more insight into the data and to answer the formed hypotheses, several regression analyses were also performed. 4.5. Quality standards

In order to assure an appropriate conduction of the research, research quality standards were reviewed prior to data collection. In order to be able to collect data appropriately, a researcher should be aware of his or her research subject, the problem at hand ang the purpose of the research. In addition to this, several factors such as reliability, validity, generalisability and transparency should be considered in order to judge the quality of the research throughout all its phases (Patton, 2002).

4.5.1. Reliability

First of all, reliability refers to the trustworthiness and consistency of the data and whether the arguments used throughout the text are of sound nature (Cooper & Schindler, 2005). It concerns itself with the question of whether the results are replicable may the research be conducted again. Three supporting elements for qualitative research can be found in literature, such as by Lincoln & Guba (1985); namely dependability, confirmability and reflexivity.

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31 The dependability of a research refers to the evidence present for the claims made in research. In order to ensure a higher degree of dependability, the researcher should provide the reader with a detailed guide which was used in conducting the interviews. Furthermore, there should be a detailed process reflecting the steps the researcher has taken in order to arrive at his/her conclusions.

4.5.1.2. confirmability

The confirmability of a research refers to the extent that the findings in the research can be confirmed by other researchers, thus the findings not being figments of the inquirer’s imagination, however clearly derived from data (Lincoln & Guba, 1985).

4.5.1.3. Reflexivity

The reflexivity of a research refers to the process of critical self-reflection within the researcher and the research relationship. The researcher must be aware of his or her own biases, preferences and preconceptions, while also being aware of the nature of the research relationship, meaning how the relationship between the researcher and the respondent may and ultimately will affect the participant’s answers to questions (Korstjens & Moser, 2018).

4.5.2. Validity

Validity concerns itself with the question whether the research really measures what it claims to measure, it concerns the credibility of the findings. In order to ensure validity by a high degree of transparency throughout all the phases of the research and control for unwanted influences that may affect the outcome of the research. Validity can be further split in two variants, internal and external validity. Internal validity refers to whether the results of the research at hand are legitimate in terms of how the respondents were selected, or the sampling method, the data was recorded and lastly the data analysis was performed. External validity refers to the transferability of the results of the research to other contexts. However, due to the partial qualitative nature of methodology, the degree to this can be done, thus the generalisability, is limited. In general, the generalisability of qualitative research is of a limited nature due to the usually small being used. Also, as aforementioned, due to the sampling method used in both the quantitative and qualitative part of this research, the generalisability is limited.

4.6. Questionnaire

The following sub-section will describe both the multiple-choice closed question and the open question interview-style questionnaire.

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32 The multiple-choice questionnaire consists of six blocks of either questions or texts. The whole survey can be found in appendix A, and will not be included in the main text, due its length.

Block 1: Background questions

The first section is concerned with background questions, in order to gain more basic information of the respondent. The block starts with a consent message, and informs the respondent of the scope, procedures, risks and benefits, confidentiality and participation in the survey. After reading this message, the respondent can either click on ‘agree’ or ‘do not agree’. If the respondent clicks on ‘agree’, the survey will be started, however, if ‘do not agree’ is selected, the respondent is taken straight to the ending message of the survey, thanking the respondent for his or her contribution and that it has been recorded. After consent has been given, questions related to nationality, education, age, gender, income and political orientation are presented to the respondent, all marked as ‘force response’ in order to gain a more complete background profile of the respondent.

Block 2: questions related to money

The second block asks general questions about how important respondents think money is in their life, and the role it plays. At the end of the block questions related to business models and a society without money are asked in order to prime the respondent for the rest of the survey.

Block 3: Climate related questions

While perhaps not directly relevant, participants are asked a short set of five questions related to their belief in climate change and whether they think climate change is an imminent problem, and who or what might be responsible for climate change. The climate-related questions are asked because of two reasons. First, the interest of the author is very climate-oriented, which caused the set-up of the subject of new business models for this thesis originally, therefore, in order to honour this interest, these questions were integrated. Second, while it may also be the subject of interest of the author, because of the connection between the current development of new business models, as can be seen in literature from authors such as Jonker (2014), climate change and sustainability are inherently linked with the development of new business models, as traditional business models are no longer adapted to our current world and (natural) environment.

Block 4: SVO slider questions

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33 on these slider questions, the respondents can be allocated to one of the categories of social value orientations, as described above.

Block 5: Cooperative concepts

The longest block of the questionnaire presents the respondent with several alternative business models and transaction methods such as the universal basic income, the co-operative and the concept of barter. After giving their opinions on the desirability and viability of these concepts, the respondent is then asked whether they believe that society and business models should be redesigned and whether this would be sustainable. For each different transaction method, the respondent is first asked whether they are aware of the concept, and if not, they are presented with a short text explaining the concept before moving on with the questions.

Block 6: Ending message

While not being a block of questions, in this last section of the questionnaire the respondent is thanked for their participation in the survey and an opportunity for questions and comments is given.

4.6.2. Open question qualitative questionnaire

The open question questionnaire was administered via a short interview, and the purpose of the small-scale questionnaire was to yield more in-depth insight on the desirability and viability of the different alternative business and transaction models. All the interviewees were selected using a convenience sampling approach, namely from the social network of the author, and the sole criteria administered was that the interviewee had to be enrolled as a student in a business- or economics-related course. This criteria was selected in order to ensure that the interviewees had some basic understanding of business models and their function, as it would be difficult to provide an educated insight on the topic without pre-existing knowledge. In total 10

interviewees were selected (𝑛2 = 10). Co-operative 6 UBI 4 Ubuntu 3 Auravana 3 Commune 2 Walden 2 Total 20 1 UBI, Commune 2 Co-operative, Ubuntu 3 Auravana, UBI 4 Co-operative, UBI 5 Auravana, Co-operative 6 Ubuntu, Co-operative 7 Auravana, Walden 8 Ubuntu, UBI 9 Co-operative, Walden 10 Commune, Co-operative

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34 In order to lower the barrier to entry, every respondent was asked to provide insight into two concepts, instead of all six. The allocated concepts per interviewee were selected using a randomising tool online, which can be found in appendix D.

What may be observed is the fact that not each of the projects has an equal distribution. In the process of selecting concepts per interviewee the decision was made that the randomisation of the concepts was of greater importance than the equal distribution of each of the concepts, in order to prevent the (sub-)conscious attribution of certain concepts to specific interviewees, and therefore further increasing the already present bias due to the subjective nature of interviews. Furthermore, the qualitative aspect of this research is aimed at providing a glimpse into possible lines of reasoning behind the belief of desirability and viability. 4.7. Ethical concerns

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35

5. RESULTS

This section describes the main insights generated from both the quantitative and qualitative parts of the research. The aim of the open-question questionnaire was the provide a statistical basis, after which the interviews were aimed at providing some in-depth thoughts that could provide some more insight into the quantitative findings. First, the quantitative findings will be presented after which the findings from the interviews may shed some light on these statistics.

The research questions concerning this paper are the following;

1. Are alternative business models seen as desirable for implementation in society?

2. Are alternative business models seen as viable for implementation in society? 3. Does the social orientation of people affect their disposition towards

alternative business models? 5.1. Quantitative analysis

5.1.1. Descriptive statistics

Before testing the hypotheses, the descriptive statistics were examined, namely the means, standard deviations (S.D.) and correlations between variables, which can be found in appendix F.

5.1.2. Control variables

Several descriptive variables were analysed as control variables, namely gender, education and political orientation. Variables such as age and income were not controlled for due to the large scale of these variables. In order to analyse the control variables, scale coding was performed, the exact scales can be found in appendix A. From testing the control variables, it was found that political orientation was positively and significantly related to the SVO angle (r= 0,360, p<0,01), while both being negatively and significantly related to UBI desirability (r=-0,381, p=<0,01) and need for BM redesign (r=-0,235, p=<0,05). Nor gender nor education were significantly related to other variables. Because of the significance of political orientation, this variable will be controlled for in the analyses of the hypotheses in the following section.

5.1.3. Hypothesis testing

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36 The results show that in fact, a higher SVO angle does lead to a higher desirability for the universal basic income (b= -0,014, p=<0,001), meaning that hypothesis 1 was supported. The negative b-value in the regression statistics are due to the inverse coding of the UBI variable, where a positive answer for desirability was ranked with a lower score, thus meaning that a higher SVO score would have a negative relationship with the inverse UBI variable. Hypothesis 2 was also significantly supported, meaning that an increase in SVO angle does lead to an increased desirability of co-operatives (b=-0,011, p=<0,001). The coding of this variable was also done inversely, leading to the negative relationship in the regression analysis. Both the testing for hypothesis 3 and hypothesis 4 were in line with the set hypotheses, however, not significant. For completion, the summary of all model testing can be found in appendix G.

5.2. Qualitative analysis

In order to grasp the interviews, a short overview of the candidates is presented in table 1 below.

Table 2: Overview of interviewees

Respondent 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Nationality Italian Dutch Canadian American French Dutch Norwegian French Swiss Romanian

Age 23 24 23 25 22 23 24 26 23 23 Gender F F M M M M M F F F Political orientation Lean right Lean left

Lean left Lean right

Indep- endent

Indep- endent

Lean right Lean left

Indep- endent

Lean left

During the interviews it quickly became clear that interviewees seemed to have a negative predisposition towards the more unknown projects, such as the Auravana and Ubuntu project. As interviewees were first asked to name 5 keywords they associated with the concepts they were interviewed on, these had the highest importance in analysing the desirability of the models. During the interviews, the interviewees were encouraged to not think to much about the keywords and mention the first words coming to mind, aiming for the individual’s true opinion, without the interference additional clouding of thoughts. In table 2 below, a summary of the keywords associated with each of the concepts can be seen.

Table 3: Main Keywords associated with concepts

Concept Main Keywords Desirability of

implementation

Ubuntu Development,

connectedness, small-scale, mental health, nutrition, sustainability, sharing,

Total interviewees: 3 Yes: 0

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