Improving the performance of business models with relationship marketing efforts – An entrepreneurial perspective

SummaryBusiness model design in this work refers to the architecture of a firm’s boundary-spanning transactions with other business model participants. The study at hand addresses calls of prior research by developing and testing a theoretical model that integrates relationship marketing into the theory of business model design with respect to the requirements of entrepreneurial ventures in the early stage of the organizational life cycle. The analysis of large-scale survey data demonstrates that the entrepreneurial venture’s performance of efficiency-centered business models increases with larger relationship marketing efforts (i.e., relationship-specific investments) towards a company’s key customers. In contrast, the performance of novelty-centered business models increases with a lower degree of such marketing efforts.

► We integrate relationship marketing into the theory of business model design.
► We focus on entrepreneurial ventures in the early stage of the life cycle.
► The theoretical model is tested with large-scale survey data.
► The performance of efficiency-centered business models increases with larger relationship-specific investments.
► The performance of novelty-centered business models increases with a lower degree of relationship-specific investments.