While environmental turbulence is considered to be able to drive business model innovation (BMI), how and when it contributes to BMI remains insufficiently explored. Based on resource dependence theory, this study aims to explore the mediating role of bricolage, a strategy of recombining and reusing available resources to address new problems and opportunities, in the relationship between environmental turbulence and BMI, and the moderating role of chief executive officer (CEO) passion.
The study uses a partial least squares-structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) to validate the research findings using survey data collected from 314 executives of 157 Chinese business-to-business firms in two waves.
The results reveal that both market turbulence and technological turbulence indirectly affect BMI through bricolage, while competitor turbulence does not. Furthermore, CEO passion enhances the impact of technological turbulence on bricolage and weakens the impact of competitor turbulence on bricolage, but has no impact on the relationship between market turbulence and bricolage.
This study reveals the underlying mechanism through which environmental turbulence affects BMI. The findings confirm that bricolage can serve as a crucial bridge between environmental turbulence and BMI. Bricolage can be considered an effective action to reduce resource dependence, which this evidence extends the literature on resource dependence theory. Moreover, CEO passion vitally affects how environmental turbulence impacts BMI. A firm facing environmental turbulence can achieve BMI by adopting bricolage and using the CEO’s passion.
