Demand response (DR) is an innovation emerging at the intersection of the energy and information and communications technology sectors. This paper aims to investigate the drivers of—and differences in—business model innovation (BMI) behaviours of firms operating in these two interacting industries. Results from 22 semi-structured interviews with representatives of Finnish DR companies show that external drivers of BMI include regulation, competition, and the demise of the telecom industry following the fall of Nokia. Whereas technology start-ups and companies from adjacent industries are motivated by entrepreneurial opportunities, incumbent energy companies are driven by the threat of losing their existing customers and need to increase efficiency. The BMI behaviours observed do not fall neatly into the often-used dichotomous categories of niche/new entrant and regime/incumbent, as firms show behaviours from both extremes. To overcome this binary thinking, we propose a morphological box model that represents the extreme states of firm BMI while allowing for flexibility.

需求响应（DR）是在能源与信息和通信技术领域的交汇处出现的一项创新。本文旨在研究在这两个相互影响的行业中运营的公司的业务模型创新（BMI）行为的驱动因素和差异。来自22家对芬兰DR公司代表进行的半结构化访谈的结果表明，随着诺基亚倒台，BMI的外部驱动因素包括监管，竞争和电信行业的崩溃。科技创业公司和邻近行业的公司受企业家机会的激励，而现有的能源公司则受到失去现有客户的威胁以及需要提高效率的驱动。由于企业表现出两种极端的行为，因此观察到的BMI行为并不能很好地归类为利基/新进入者和政权/在位者经常使用的二分类类别。为了克服这种二元思维，我们提出了一种形态学的盒子模型，该模型代表了公司BMI的极端状态，同时还具有灵活性。