Title: Business model innovation and financial performance: a study of trading and services SMEs in UAE

Authors: Mohammed Ajmal; Shazi Shah Jabeen; Nitin Simha Vihari

Addresses: Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, BITS Pilani, Dubai Campus, UAE ' Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, BITS Pilani, Dubai Campus, UAE ' Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, BITS Pilani, Dubai Campus, UAE

Abstract: In today's competitive environment, innovation has its own importance in maintaining a competitive advantage. Business model innovation has carved a special niche in the age of dynamic business and revenue models. This study aims at exploring the effect of innovation at business model level towards the financial performance of the small and medium scale enterprises (SMEs) in Dubai, UAE. Data is collected from 262 respondents of 18 trading and services SMEs with a response rate of 54.58%. Multiple regression analysis is used to measure the casual effects of business model innovation dimensions such as value creation innovation, value capture innovation and value proposition innovation towards the financial performance of SMEs. Further cross tabulation among the demographic indicators and SME clusters underlines the rich demographic dividend of the respondents. The study proposes and validates a theoretical framework and further provides future directions with special reference to the SMEs in Dubai, UAE. The findings of the study can be generalised to any developing country context.

Keywords: business model innovation; BMI; financial performance; small and medium enterprises; SMEs; UAE.

DOI: 10.1504/IJBIR.2021.119545

International Journal of Business Innovation and Research, 2021 Vol.26 No.3, pp.261 - 272

Received: 29 Jun 2019
Accepted: 13 Oct 2019
Published online: 09 Dec 2021 *

Full-text access for editors Full-text access for subscribers Purchase this article Comment on this article