Business Commons^™

Building Business Models Through Simple Rules, Sunny Li Sun, Jianqiang Xiao, Yanli Zhang, Xia Zhao

Department of Management Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

Purpose: How do entrepreneurs use simple rules to build their business models? Based on an inductive study of three Chinese Internet and technology firms, the authors find that business models emerge from simple rules that entrepreneurs learn from their experience. Simple rules also guide entrepreneurs to actualize and exploit opportunities in the marketplace, and they can help business models evolve through market feedback, especially in internationalization. This paper aims to delve into the black box of entrepreneurial decision-making and offer a better depiction of the business model development process in uncertain and fast-changing environments and thus provide guidance for future …