Accounting for national business models’ adaptation and restructuring evidence from Saudi Arabia

Abstract

This thesis contributes to accounting for business models theory by extending its “adaptation and restructuring” concepts, originally developed for research within corporate settings, to the national context of Saudi Arabia. Adopting an exploratory inductive approach, I use national business models’ theory as a frame to loosely conceptualise the impact of the Saudi Arabian government’s recent initiatives, as stated in their Vision 2030 government plan, to transform the country’s economy. Saudi Arabia has been heavily reliant on crude oil and its by-products, and the crisis in oil prices monumentally impacted the economy. To reduce its reliance on revenues from the oil industry, the Saudi government introduced an economic transformation program named Vision 2030. As a result, Saudi Arabia aims to reshape its position in the international field with a plan to diversify and increase revenues from non-oil sources. Involving a significant shake-up of the national economic policies and regulations, the transformation intended via Vision 2030 at country level, provides a unique opportunity for research that evaluates the application of theory on business model adaptation and restructuring and its practical implications at national level. The term business model describes the procedures and processes, that can transform organizational business functions and corporate activities. The business models’ concept has also been used to frame national economic development by describing and evaluating a country’s policies, regulations, and economic developments. However, prior research has focused on evaluating national business models of well-developed and diversified economies, where the opportunity to capture and frame adaptation and restructuring processes has been limited. To initiate the filling of this gap in accounting for national business models’ literature, this thesis employs a mixed methods approach to analyse relevant narratives and numbers which then lead to the construction of a ‘descriptive national business model’ for Saudi Arabia. This loose conceptualisation improves our understanding of the interplay between government regulatory initiatives and other factors, such as culture and religion, that influence a national business model’s ability to restructure and adopt in the phase of modern economic challenges.