Review of Managerial Science - Call for Papers: Special Issue on "New Space Economy: Unveiling a New Frontier for Business Model Innovation"

Guest Editors:
Angelo Cavallo, Politecnico di Milano, Italy
Lorenzo Massa, Business School Aalborg University
Antonio Messeni Petruzzelli, Politecnico di Bari, Italy
Umberto Panniello, Politecnico di Bari, Italy
Christina Theodoraki, Aix-Marseille University, France

Motivation for the Special Issue
Rapid technological progress and related technological affordances within and across industries continuously open new value creation and value capture venues both for established firms and startups. One of the most promising areas for new business is represented by the space (Weinzierl, 2018). Indeed, space is no longer solely a governments’ exclusive geo-political arena, but it is becoming more and more a competitive ground also for private companies (Mazzucato and Robinson, 2018; Robinson and Mazzucato, 2019). Space is where firms can build new competitive advantage. Leading political institutions argue that space infrastructure and capabilities can be an engine for growth in a multitude of industries, hence enabling the development of new products and services bringing additional economic benefits to firms and countries (OECD, 2020). Taken together, these elements constitute what is known as the emerging industry of the New Space Economy (NSE).

The NSE can be traced back to the beginning of the 21st century, coinciding with the birth of what are now the most successful firms in the industry, such as SpaceX and Blue Origin. The economic relevance of the emerging NSE is widely acknowledged, with an estimated market value of approximately $447 billion in 2023, up from $280 billion in 2010, and projected to reach $1 trillion by 2030 (McKinsey, 2023). Despite its clear economic and societal impact (Morreta et al., 2022), the strategic implications of space for businesses remain only partially understood (Vitori et al., 2023). Particularly, there is limited insight into how firms can leverage space technology, services, and infrastructure to enhance their competitiveness. McKinsey & Company advocates for every firm to develop a space strategy (Brukardt et al., 2023), emphasizing the need for businesses to adapt and innovate their models to capitalize on (space) technology affordances (Autio et al., 2018).

In addition to incumbents needing to adapt their business models to capitalize on the opportunities presented by the New Space Economy (NSE), this emerging industry is strongly characterized by entrepreneurial initiatives, particularly from startups (Carter and Pezeshkan, 2023). Startups often leverage space solutions derived from the integration of space technologies with other advanced technologies (e.g., digital technologies, advanced materials, etc.) across various industries and applications, including transportation, healthcare, agriculture, education, meteorology, disaster management, and banking (see Lamine et al., 2021).

The space economy has evolved considerably giving birth to what some commentators have referred to a nascent ecosystem (Cloitre et al., 2023) and is offering the opportunity to innovate business models (Vecchi and Brennan, 2020) in terms of reconfiguration of existing business models and design of new ones (Massa, 2023).

Over the last two decades, the business model has emerged as a system level construct and a comprehensive unit of analysis to capture the architecture of value creation, deliver, and capture that a company, or other organizations, put in place as they go to market (Teece, 2010). Agreement has progressively emerged that business models are central to our understanding of a plethora of phenomena of both theoretical and pratical significance. Business models matter to science and high-tech entrepreneurship. Here, the business model operates as a bridge that connects new innovative technologies and scientific discoveries to the realization of economic and social value in markets (Chesbrough, 2007; Hiteva and Foxon, 2021). Business models also matter to incumbent firms. Indeed, seizing new opportunities increasingly requires firms to adapt their business models. And incumbents often need to innovate their business models to thrive in the face of competitive threats coming from novel, sometimes game changing value propositions, business models and even technologies (Massa et al., 2017; Lantano et al., 2022). Finally, business models matter to policy makers, visionary leaders, and entrepreneurs interested in finding ways to address sustainability problems using markets or support the achievement of the sustainable development goals (Lüdeke-Freund et al., 2022; Broccardo et al., 2023; Inigo et al., 2017).

In the last two decades (early 2000 to date), a significant amount of knowledge has been developed around the business model construct, the business model innovation process, and to the specific value creation and capture mechanisms, in a plethora of industrial and economic contexts (Foss and Saebi, 2017). On the business model construct, research has focused on different types of business models, the relationship between business models and strategy, as well as on clarifying the nature of the construct itself (e.g., see Remane et al., 2017; Zot et al., 2011; Massa et al., 2017, Gebauer et al., 2017). Studies of the business model innovation process have emphasized the discovery-driven nature of business models (McGrath, 2010) and the importance of experimentation and learning to cope with the uncertainty involved in designing and scaling innovative business models (Cavallo et al., 2023; Ghezzi and Cavallo, 2020). Overall, research on the business model has given rise to a field and an area of academic inquiry which, according to many commentators, holds the potential to significantly impact practice.

Against this background, the premise of this call for papers is that the recent emergence and progress of the NSE is raising new research questions as well as adding a new “layer” of opportunities and threats for space-enabled business models, i.e. business models built around the usage of space resource (such as data, technologies, or environment). The dynamisms in the NSE, coupled with rapid technological advances coming from the integration of space technologies with digital
technologies (e.g., AI, robotics, cloud) are opening up new entrepreneurial spaces and hence giving rise to a breadth of experimentation with business models, which, in turn, is revealing the need of new research.

For example, recently, pharmaceutical companies as well as food and nutrients companies started to leverage the potential of microgravity for their production and research activities; semiconductor companies are exploring the possibility to use the vacuum of the space environment to improve the manufacturing process of chips in extraterrestrial factories; telecommunications companies planned to build in space fiber-optic cables which could be more efficient than traditional ones. What business model changes are required to turn these experiments into success stories? Meanwhile, and as noted earlier, the number of “space start-ups” is growing rapidly, having moved from approximately 250 in 2010 to more than 600 in 2022 with projections to become more than 1,000 in 2030 (McKinsey, 2023). What business models are emerging? How do they operate (how to they create, deliver and capture value, for whom, etc.)? What characterized the design of these business models in the NSE? These are just some examples of the questions that are emerging at the nexus between research on the business models and the NSE.

The goal of this special issue, titled “New Space Economy: Unveiling a New Frontier for Business Model Innovation” is to solicit contributions that could help us create new knowledge on space-based business models, thus contributing to both our understanding of dynamics and opportunities in the NSE as well as to our comprehension of business models’ innovation dynamics. Particular emphasis is given to space-enabled business models which can leverage on the convergence between space and other technologies as enablers of innovation to sustain simultaneous exploration and exploitation of business opportunities (von Briel et al., 2018). Additionally, we invite reflections and novel paths (Billing et al., 2024) including business models in creating and appropriating value from the space ecosystem (Cloitre et al., 2023). Thereby, we invite both empirical and theoretical papers to help scholars and managers take a new perspective to let established “traditional” business models evolve and new business models raise in the NSE domain.

Specific topics
Given the above arguments, papers considered for the Special Issue may focus on topics including, but not limited to, the following:

• New business models
  What new business model types and archetypes can companies adopt in the NSE? Which changes are needed to repurpose the products and services of the traditional business in the NSE and what precautions are essential to start new business models in the NSE from scratch?
• New value creation, appropriation, and delivery
  What are the intrinsic characteristics of the NSE that underlie value creation, appropriation, and delivery mechanisms? What are the new products, services, and processes designed specifically for and available only within the NSE?
• Business model scaling
  What are the strategies, drivers, and organizational capabilities to enable rapid growth and scaling of space-enabled business models? How do incumbent firms introduce and scale-up new space-enabled business models? What are the organizational barriers to business model scaling process for incumbent firms operating in the traditional space industry?
• New strategic opportunities and capabilities
  What are the strategic opportunities and barriers enabled by the NSE? Which dynamic capabilities do firms need to build to address the strategic changes and to develop strategic agility in the NSE?
• External Enablers and Entrepreneurial opportunities
  What are the entrepreneurial opportunities and risks that the NSE encounters? What can explain the success and failure of entrepreneurial initiatives carried out in the NSE? What are the external enablers of new business models in the NSE? What are the key enabling mechanisms leading to the emergence of new space enabled business models?
• Ecosystem growth factors
  What are the conditions that enable business and enteprenurial ecosystems in the NSE? How have technological factors, partnership mechanisms, regulatory and legal challenges, international collaboration and geopolitical risks, social changes, uncertainty due to global crises, and other factors influenced the growth of the NSE in recent periods?
• Relationship between the NSE and traditional business
  What is the relationship between the NSE and traditional business? Which aspects of the traditional business may enhance and enable new forms of strategic opportunities in the NSE and vice versa?
• Effect on traditional business
  Which effects does the NSE have on traditional business strategies and organizational structures? Which new business strategies and organizational structures can it unlock?
• Technological development
  How can the technological aspects underlying the NSE be managed? What is the role of digital technologies and skills for creating and capturing value in the NSE? What is the current readiness level in terms of resources and capabilities for NSE initiatives? What are the gaps on infrastructures and technological skills that need to be bridged to achieve full interoperability and synchronic interaction in the NSE?

• Submissions System opens: July 15, 2024

• Paper Submission Deadline: June 30, 2025

References
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Billing, C. A., Bryson, J. R., & Kitsos, T. (2024). Industrial path development in the UK space sector: processes of legitimacy building in the establishment of Space 2.0. Industry and Innovation, published online 22 Jan 2024.

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