How a successful business model (BM) is designed is a key question in the business model innovation (BMI) literature. Delving on the shared concept of BM as a configuration of components and interdependencies, we take a cognitive perspective to study the conceptual combination as a central process in BMI. We investigate the complexity of conceiving a new BM configuration, through a longitudinal study of the emergence of “The Huffington Post” which combined newspaper and blog in a disruptive and successful BM. With our research we theoretically frame the dynamic interplay between the three cognitive mechanisms of conceptual combination and the system of interdependent components of an emerging BM. Our findings unveil how the overall process unfolds and specifically delves into the dynamic iteration of composing and experimenting with the new configuration until the overall coherence is reached. Hence, we advance the literature by showing how the conceptual combination of a new BM is a complex effort and comprises some iterative cycles, vital to reach a coherent configuration which could secure a superior performance.

如何设计成功的商业模式 (BM) 是商业模式创新 (BMI) 文献中的一个关键问题。深入研究 BM 的共享概念作为组件和相互依赖的配置，我们从认知的角度来研究概念组合作为 BMI 的核心过程。我们通过对“赫芬顿邮报”的出现进行纵向研究，调查了构思新 BM 配置的复杂性，该邮报将报纸和博客结合在一个颠覆性的成功 BM 中。通过我们的研究，我们从理论上构建了概念组合的三种认知机制与新兴 BM 的相互依赖组件系统之间的动态相互作用。我们的发现揭示了整个过程是如何展开的，并特别深入研究了组合和试验新配置的动态迭代，直到达到整体一致性。因此，我们通过展示新 BM 的概念组合是一项复杂的工作并包含一些迭代周期来推进文献，这对于实现可确保卓越性能的连贯配置至关重要。