Adapting to survive: business model reconfiguration amidst institutional voids - a multiple case study in Ghana

Business Model Innovation (BMI hereafter) brings rewards to a business, but in their quest to innovate their business models and achieve these rewards, firms operating in a weak and underdeveloped institutional context are faced with additional difficulties in their quest to do so. A weak and underdeveloped institutional context increases the transaction costs and operational challenges of businesses operating in them as they would have to battle with myriads of institutional voids. This research investigates the BMI processes of SMEs operating in a developing country with several institutional voids. The study adopts a qualitative approach to investigate how these SMEs have innovated their business models amidst the myriads of institutional voids they face and how these institutional voids have influenced them in doing so. A multiple case study is conducted on 14 Ghanaian SMEs in-situ to examine how they have innovated their business models and how the institutional voids in their country influenced them in doing so. The institutional voids framework Khanna and colleagues (Khanna and Palepu, 1997; Khanna, Palepu and Sinha, 2005) was used to frame the context of this work. Several findings emerged from the study, but there were four key contributions. 1)The institutional voids SMEs face compels them to adopt building resilient business models as their primary institutional strategy. 2)An institutional voids framework for studying the BMI environment in SMEs was proposed. 3) BMI in SMEs is a series of reconfigurations in the auxiliary aspect of their business model. 4) The content of the BMI process in SMEs remains unformulated. The results suggest that institutional bodies and organisations that support SMEs in developing countries should consider lending them more support around BMI if they seek to enhance the competitiveness and survivability of these SMEs.