Exploring and extending a collective open business model

Marketing research has paid scant attention to the notion of business models. This is surprising, considering that at the center of marketing is often the notion of creating a value proposition, one of the key components of business models. This paper identifies an emerging form of business model, which we term collective open business model, based on the concept of interdependent consumer collectives. We define an interdependent consumer collective as a group of consumers who benefit from resource complementarities in the pursuit of achieving a superior consumption experience. Grounded in interdependence theory, this paper conceptualizes the dynamics within the interdependent consumer collective which in turn influences the value creation, value delivery and value appropriation components of a collective open business model. Several unique attributes of a collective open business model are highlighted and future directions for research are discussed.