Business model innovation as a process for transforming user mobility practices

Abstract

The notion that business models can play a critical role in sociotechnical transitions and bring about sustainable reorientations of existing systems has received increasing attention. Changes to social practices are also fundamental to such transformations yet are poorly understood. In this paper, we examine the possibility that business model innovation can affect changes to user practices associated with personal mobility. Based on an interview study with 21 car sharing operators in four Nordic countries, we show that experimentation with different elements of car sharing business models has the potential to change user practices by modifying their elements, by recruiting new practitioners, and by creating linkages between otherwise separate user practices.