Drivers of business model innovation in social enterprises

Innovation is a key source of competitive advantage in social enterprises and their success depends on pursuing new innovations. Research in social business has accelerated in the past two decades but Previous research has focused more on how social businesses create and absorb value. Business model innovation has become one of the most important trends in business research but little research has been done on innovation in the social business model. Therefore, the present study was conducted to investigate the drivers of business model innovation in social enterprises. The phenomenological qualitative research method was used as the research method and 12 social companies were selected by purposive sampling. Data were collected using semi-structured interviews. Analysis of the collected data indicates that the drivers of business model innovation in social companies include two categories of factors. Environmental factors that including business environment, environmental dynamics, ICT development, target community, macro-environmental forces and key stakeholders. And internal factors that include business sustainability, corporate social responsibility, key resources, key activities, customer relations, and revenue. The findings of this study show that the drivers of innovation in the business model have different dimensions and applications which can be exploited from the perspective of researchers, policy makers as well as social companies.