Presenting a new sequential methodology to design, test, and scale Sustainable Business Models

Abstract

These days the 2030 agenda has put social and environmental concerns at the core of business practice. This has driven new ventures to integrate them into their business model since their first stages of development. Thus, many of the behaviors traditionally associated with social enterprises are being adopted by ordinary businesses. This process is mentioned in the literature as hybridization. Consequently, this sustainable hybrid approach adopted by a growing amount of new ventures requires the development of new tools to design, test, and scale sustainable business models addressing the integration of social and environmental concerns into their business model since their initial stages of development. However, up to date, there is no tool fully capable of designing, testing, and scaling sustainable business models. Thus, the present work is aimed at filling this gap in the literature by providing a sequential methodology that combines the Economy for the Common Good framework, the Lean Start-up, and the Delphi method. The authors have developed the teaching methodology proposed in this paper over five consecutive years, using Action-based research with international and local students of the Entrepreneurship Course delivered at the Degree in Business Administration of the University of València.