Business Model Innovation: The Organizational Dimension, edited by Nicolai Foss and Tina Saebi. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2015, 336 pp., ISBN: 9780198701873, £60.00, hardback.

Published date01 December 2016
AuthorJohn Bryson
DOIhttp://doi.org/10.1111/bjir.12208
Date01 December 2016
Book Reviews 881
The authors note that there is a significant contradiction between the willingness of
pension funds to invest in privateequity, the formers’ long-term, and the latters’ short-
term obligations, and, of course, the extent to which is it ethical to seek to boost one
set of workers’ pensions savings at the potential expense of another’s. Although some
private equity funds have sought to make concessions in terms of the fees charged to
attract new pension fund investment, the authors argue that the relationship is still
very problematic, and, indeed, that the dominant investment models of the pensions
industry bear rethinking.
This book is one of the most substantive accounts on the privateequity industry; the
only work of a similar weight isthe earlier Cumming (2010) edited collection. The real
strengths of the Batt and Appelbaum volume are that it does provide both new case
study evidence,and a focus on the industry that is broadlyaccessible to a wide audience.
The main limitations of this volume are that it does tend to over-generalize on the
alternative investor ecosystem, and discount the extent to which dierent alternative
investors may have quite dierent agendas (here, the extent to which a number of
Sovereign Wealth Funds have become quite cautious in dealing with private equity
bears considering). It is to be hoped that this collection will serve to stimulate further
theoretical and applied work on the industry; the growing body of studies that already
take account of HR and industrial relations issues (most notably in BJIR and Human
Resource Management Journal)in considering the eects of private equity takeovers is
encouraging.
GEOFF WOOD
University of Essex
References
Cumming, D. (ed.) (2010). Private Equity. New York: WileyKolb Series in Finance.
Goergen, M., O’Sullivan, N.and Wood, G. (2014). ‘The employmentconsequences of
private equity acquisitions: the case of institutional buy outs’, European Economic
Review, 71: 67–79.
Business Model Innovation: The Organizational Dimension, edited by Nicolai Foss
and Tina Saebi. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2015, 336 pp., ISBN:
9780198701873, £60.00, hardback.
The publication of this edited collection on business models and innovation is
especially welcome. Over the lastdecade there has been an interesting development in
organizational strategy with the emergence of a series of theoretical and conceptual
papers on business models and the role they play in the organization of economic
activity. Much of this literature is conceptual and based on the elaboration of single
case studies. This edited collection is among the first book to be published on the
relationshipbetween business models and innovation and it followsa number of special
issues.Foss and Saebi are to be congratulated in assemblingan interesting collection of
chapters held together by a useful review chapterwritten by the editors in which they
attempt to bring ‘organization into the discussion’.
The concept of ‘business models’ has become extremely influential in shaping
academic debate but arguably it has been even more influential as a much over-used
C
2016 John Wiley& Sons Ltd.

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