The purpose of this research is to determine the firms, innovations in the cases that have successfully overcome a decline and also to assess whether these innovations can be considered as business model innovations.
In this paper, the data was collected from analyzing four case studies in different businesses through semistructured interviews with relevant internal experts.
The findings revealed that the innovation that had been taken was related to the constructs of their existing business model. Therefore, the business model innovation functions as a critical practice of turnaround strategy in the decline period.
The article provides the most important business model constructs in each business through which the related firm could overcome a decline in their life cycle. Since this paper has been studied in different unrelated businesses and due to the qualitative research nature, generalization cannot be ensured.
From the practical and managerial point of view, this article is useful as it defines the most important business model components in each industry and based on it, the similar companies can do innovation in their business model. It also helps the related companies in the same industry to develop and design their specific turnaround strategies.
So far, rare research has seen business model innovation as a turnaround strategy, and it can be claimed that till now, no research has been conducted in Iran in this context. Therefore, the business practitioners can employ innovation on the components of their existing business model to overcome a decline.
