The inaugural issues of Journal of Business Models

The field of business models has over the past decade received a vast amount of interest from business, political and academic perspectives. Communities of practice and theory have emerged, special tracks and symposia are finding their way into established professions and respected academic journals in a variety of disciplines. However, the field of business models has not yet a dedicated academic outlet. Until now!In the inaugural issues of the Journal of Business Models we will adress state-of-the-art of the field and outline future directions of research.For several decades, traditional disciplines such as organization, management, accounting and finance have been problematized in the light of societal and industrial developments. There exist numerous examples of how new business values are gaining momentum in relation to the value proposition and value creation of organizations.However, the rise of new business models, e.g. based on loosely coupled networks, multisided platforms of value creation and digitalization, potentially pose much bigger threats to the traditional professions. This is because the very structure of organization and value-realization is altered with the inception of new business model typologies. Perhaps it can even be argued that management as we know it today, will become obsolete in a world of network organizations and social-community based business models, thus posing new conceptions of accountability, control and leadership and ultimately creating new sets of stakeholder tensions.Despite such developments in real life business, i.e. communities, knowledge, collaboration, networks, innovation, the traditional professions have not kept pace. Thus from a management perspective we may need to ask: “How do we produce decision-relevant information, create leadership, alignment and direction?” And from an accounting perspective we may need to ask: “How do we capture value creation and value realizing transactions of network-based enterprises?” Furthermore, from an auditing and law perspective we may need to ask: “How do we validate information across structures that do not exist per se”? Such questions could be posed for all traditional academic disciplines in turn illustrating the need for coming t terms with a new reality. Finally, implications for policy-making bodies need to be evaluated.In the inaugural issues of the Journal of Business Models we intend to address state-of-the-art in the field.We therefore welcome articles that discuss business model definitions, typologies, archetypes, patterns and components and discuss the relations of the field of business models to key related disciplines such as strategy, organisation, innovation, entrepreneurship and management.