Welcome to the Vaasa Servitization Workshop 2025; this year, the event explores Business Model Innovation at the Intersection of Digitalization, Sustainability, and Advanced Service-Based Strategies. The workshop brings together researchers, industry experts, and thought leaders to explore transformative strategies and cutting-edge advancements shaping the future of business.
This aims to foster a deeper understanding of the intricate interplay between digitalization, sustainability, and Advanced Service-Based Strategies in the context of business model innovation. Contributors are encouraged to provide insights that transcend disciplinary boundaries, contributing to a rich tapestry of knowledge. Together, we aim to illuminate the path toward a future where sustainable practices are seamlessly embedded in developing advanced service-based business models driven by the intersection of digitalization, sustainability, and circular economy principles.
Paper Development Workshop for Special Issue and Book
This year’s workshop will serve as a paper development event for submissions to a forthcoming Special Issue in an ABS-3-level journal, which will soon be formally confirmed. Participants will receive valuable feedback from editors to refine their research.
To ensure meaningful dissemination of research and ideas, authors whose papers are not accepted into the special issue can submit to a forthcoming book centered on Business Model Innovation. This dual-track approach provides multiple publication pathways for valuable scholarly contributions.
Scope of Special Issue and Book
The special issue will explore the intersection of digitalization, sustainability, and circular economy principles in advanced service-oriented BMI. We seek to understand how digital technologies and data-driven strategies can be used to develop innovative service-based business models that drive economic value, enhance customer experiences, and contribute to environmental sustainability and societal well-being.
The present SI proposal invites scholars to debate critical questions for the future development of the BMI and the digital and sustainable servitization fields. Notably, we want to address the role of digital transformation (e.g., IoT, AI, and blockchain) and opportunities emerging from implementing service-related strategies and business models (e.g., outcome-based and performance-based approaches) while considering the implications for sustainability and circularity. We encourage scholars to submit studies that build and extend knowledge at the intersection of the above research areas.
The primary drive of this SI proposal is to establish a shared platform to discuss key issues for advancing the servitization field, including alternative theoretical lenses, opportunities for theory development, and manners to address emerging research questions/issues concerning BMI. Thus, we seek submissions with an original perspective and advanced current thinking, including various perspectives on business model innovation in a changing and volatile landscape. Hence, submissions to the SI should use multiple means of studying the above phenomena to propose alternative approaches and future directions to make a significant and novel contribution. Although we welcome every type of submission, we look for submissions (beyond systematic reviews) that propose and discuss fresh conceptual and methodological avenues and provide fresh empirical evidence. Thus, we welcome academically oriented papers with solid conceptual grounding that should look for, but not be limited to, addressing the following issues concerning the integration of Digitalization and Sustainability into Service-Based Business Model Innovation:
- Research aligning digital service-based business models with sustainability goals and circular economy frameworks and exploring how digital technologies enable the development of advanced service-based business models that prioritize sustainability.
- Developing and implementing Data-as-a-Service (DaaS) business models that promote sustainability, illustrating successful integration of environmental considerations into digital and data-driven service models, and examining challenges related to data privacy, security, and ethical considerations in DaaS offerings.
- Study of (digital) platform-based service models platforms facilitating service-based sustainable and circular economy practices, such as resource sharing, product life extension, and recycling initiatives.
- Evaluation of the role of platform ecosystems in promoting sustainable consumption and production patterns.
- Understanding business model portfolio management in the digital-sustainable service context. This topic involves strategies for managing multiple business models that integrate digitalization, sustainability, and service-based approaches and explores how firms can diversify their business model portfolios to support circular value creation and balance traditional and innovative models.
- Exploring micro-foundations of BMI at the digital-sustainability-service nexus, including individual and organizational capabilities, behaviors, decision-making processes, leadership, culture, and employee engagement in promoting digitally-enabled and sustainable service-oriented business models that reinforce successful BMI at the intersection of digitalization, sustainability, and service-based strategies.
Other related topics are also welcome if they contribute to the proposed debate.
This comprehensive compilation aims to foster a deeper understanding of the intricate interplay between digitalization, sustainability, and Advanced Service-Based Strategies in the context of business model innovation. Contributors are encouraged to provide insights that transcend disciplinary boundaries, contributing to a rich tapestry of knowledge. Together, we aim to illuminate the path toward a future where sustainable practices are seamlessly embedded in developing advanced service-based business models driven by the intersection of digitalization, sustainability, and circular economy principles.