Sustainable business model innovation: Scale development, validation and proof of performance

Sustainable business model innovation (SBMI) has recently drawn great interest among academia and in practice. However, notwithstanding the surge in related academic and non-academic literature, a validated measurement scale for SBMI is not yet available. This study attempts to fill the gap by proposing a scale for SBMI, using an initial sample of 20 respondents (for qualitative enquiry), followed by a quantitative validation (using two sample sets of 130 and 200 SMEs from Saudi Arabia). The findings provided a 10-item scale, conceptualized under three factors, namely: sustainable value proportion innovation, sustainable value creation and delivery innovation, and sustainable value capture innovation. The study provides important implications for SME owners and managers, by highlighting that SBMI will result in enhanced SME performance as well as a competitive advantage.