The responsible business model canvas: designing and assessing a sustainable business modeling tool for students and start-up entrepreneurs

Abstract

Purpose: Business model (BM) canvases have been used in educational institutions and business incubators for over a decade to assist students and start-up entrepreneurs in developing their business projects. Given the urgency of tackling sustainability challenges, several tools have emerged to stimulate sustainable business modeling (SBM). However, these tools are often too complex for nonexperts in business modeling or sustainability, and thus insufficiently user-friendly for educational contexts. This study aims to address this pedagogical gap by describing the design process of the responsible business model canvas (RBMC). Design/methodology/approach: The authors relied on a design science research methodology involving the active participation of end users, entrepreneurship educators, business coaches and external partners. The authors proposed four criteria and ten subcriteria to analyze existing SBM canvases based on their user-friendliness and to design the initial prototype of the RBMC. The RBMC was subsequently tested in various settings, including classroom assignments and business incubation programs, with over 1,000 university students. The tool was refined and assessed throughout the development process, incorporating feedback from focus groups with start-up entrepreneurs. Findings: Through the development process, the authors created a user-friendly tool to help novice student and start-up entrepreneurs integrate sustainability into their BMs: the RBMC. The canvas consists of 14 building blocks grouped into four areas: consistency (mission, vision, values), desirability (value propositions, customer segments, users and beneficiaries, customer relationships and channels), feasibility (key activities, key resources, key partners and stakeholders and governance) and viability (cost structure, revenues streams, negative impacts and positive impacts). Research limitations/implications: The research methods and user-friendliness criteria in this study can be applied in other contexts to design tools to support sustainable entrepreneurship education. While the RBMC is currently being used in several educational institutions throughout the world, its impacts in different pedagogical and cultural settings require further validation. Practical implications: The RBMC is a user-friendly tool to introduce students and start-up entrepreneurs to SBM. It helps raise users’ awareness about sustainability concerns, challenging them to consider issues they might have otherwise overlooked. Some participants even shifted their outlook and were motivated to develop a long-term vision integrating compensatory, mitigative or corrective actions into their BMs. Originality/value: The RBMC is the outcome of a balanced approach that combines both pragmatic (i.e. user-friendliness) and normative (i.e. sustainability) perspectives. It provides users with a systematic approach for integrating and applying sustainability issues in their business projects.