Evaluating international business model portability: A framework for integrating economic, strategic, and cultural perspectives

This paper proposes a new, comprehensive framework for identifying and evaluating economic, cultural, and strategic dimensions of business models, then assessing international “portability”: how well a given business model is likely to perform in overseas markets. Its goal is to define and explore a potentially useful method whereby entrepreneurs, managers, and investors can evaluate a business model's likely effectiveness outside of market of origin. The paper posits that the strategic and economic logic by which an enterprise profitably acquires and serves customers — its business model — is, like a person, “imprinted” by the distinctive national environment in which it was developed. Therefore, business models, like expatriate businesspeople, achieve greater or lesser degrees of success when transplanted to foreign environments. Specifically, the paper defines a pyramid-shaped, tiered scheme for examining three distinct “layers” of a business model: Firm, Culture, and Economic. The bottom “Economic” layer comprises a typological “infrastructure” of sixteen mutually exclusive, collectively exhaustive ways firms can make, sell, lease, or broker assets. The middle “Culture” tier identifies explicit and tacit assumptions of the model specific to national origin that may affect the model's international portability. The topmost “Firm” tier represents a model's individual “personality” — specific innovations or “plot twists” designed to overcome competitors and/or meet unserved customer needs.