The Promise of the Cognitive View of Business Modelling

The business model construct has become very popular in the strategystrategy and innovation literatures. It has recently been pointed out that a cognitive view of business models, business modelling, and business model innovation, holds much promise in terms of advancing our understanding of both the business model construct, and how such modelling takes place. However, as a newcomer, how would you approach this emergent field? In this chapter, I start by defining the business model, and then scope the cognitive view. This includes a discussion of the business model as a mental representation of a business, how such mental representations are framed and shared, how emotions and biases can affect business modelling, and the role of organizational learning and unlearning in business model innovation.