A structured approach to classifying evolutionary patterns of technology-driven business models: Hybrid analysis of co-word and citation approaches

Technology convergence, which promotes collaboration among different technological fields, had become the major source of changes in innovation trends and technology-paradigm shifts. With the emergence of convergence between technologies and services, it is easily noticed that the varieties of technology-driven business models are greatly expanded as well. From the previous researches, it is conjectured that the technological bases of source technologies would play an important role in technology convergence since technology convergence combines two or more existing technologies and turns into a different technology with different capabilities. Same rule would apply to the convergence between technology and service. This research proposes an algorithm to characterize the evolutionary patterns of technology-driven business models. It is examined by utilizing the both citation and textual information of business model patents. The suggested evolutionary patterns might be able to guide companies to assess where their current business model stands in relation to its potential and to find new opportunities.