Strategic Architectures of Business Consulting and Business Model Innovation in Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises: An Integrative Theoretical and Empirical Framework
Keywords:
Business consulting, business model innovation, small and medium-sized enterprises, strategic transformationAbstract
Small and medium-sized enterprises have long been recognized as the backbone of modern economies, yet their survival, competitiveness, and growth remain persistently constrained by structural vulnerabilities, limited resources, and increasing environmental turbulence. In this context, business consulting has emerged not merely as an external support mechanism but as a strategic co-creator of enterprise transformation, especially when aligned with business model innovation. This article develops an original, integrated, and theoretically grounded framework that explains how business consulting architectures interact with business model innovation processes to shape firm performance in small and medium-sized enterprises. Drawing upon the complex model of business consulting proposed by Kovalchuk (2025), and synthesizing it with foundational and contemporary literature on business model innovation, value creation, and strategic renewal, this study constructs a multilayered analytical narrative that moves beyond linear advisory perspectives.
The results demonstrate that business consulting is most effective when it operates as a configurational force that reshapes the cognitive frames of entrepreneurs, the structural arrangements of firms, and the relational networks connecting them to markets and institutions. In this sense, consulting becomes a catalyst for business model innovation by enabling small and medium-sized enterprises to experiment with new value propositions, revenue architectures, and partnership structures. The findings further show that institutional environments, competitive intensity, and organizational learning capabilities moderate the impact of consulting-driven innovation, echoing insights from recent meta-analytic and configurational studies.
The discussion elaborates the theoretical and practical implications of these findings, highlighting how the complex consulting model of Kovalchuk (2025) provides a missing link in the business model innovation literature by explaining how abstract strategic concepts are translated into operational and entrepreneurial reality. The article concludes by outlining limitations and future research directions, emphasizing the need for longitudinal and cross-contextual studies that further explore the dynamic interplay between consulting systems and business model evolution.
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Copyright (c) 2025 Aleksandr Petrov
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
