To remain competitive in a shifting sociocultural landscape, firms often introduce new meanings—new reasons why customers use their products or services—that must be embedded into their strategy. However, customers are active participants in value creation processes, rather than passive recipients. This is especially true in services, where value is created in the interaction between provider and consumer. When designing business models, firms must thus consider customers’ meaning-making activities, which are highly subjective and influenced by cultural frames and personal characteristics. Yet, the business model literature has largely overlooked how firms design business models to articulate new meanings and shape customer perceptions. In this study, we explore the role of business model design in determining how firms articulate new meanings that customers subsequently perceive. We present a comparative case study of two store concepts developed by the same entrepreneur, both introducing the same new meanings. Through in-depth interviews with the founder and CEO, in-store observations, and archival data, we analyze their strategy for introducing new meanings. Additionally, we apply topic modeling to online reviews to examine how customers interpreted these new meanings. Our findings suggest that firms can shape customer perceptions of new meanings through business model design, particularly by leveraging value creation mechanisms tied to value delivery. This study enriches the business model design literature and connects it to the innovation of meaning discourse. It also offers practitioners insights into how to use firm strategy to convey intended meanings to customers.

中文翻译：

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意义在旁观者眼中：协调商业模式设计与客户意义建构


为了在不断变化的社会文化环境中保持竞争力，公司通常会引入新的含义，即客户使用其产品或服务的新原因，这些含义必须嵌入到他们的战略中。但是，客户是价值创造过程的积极参与者，而不是被动的接收者。在服务中尤其如此，在服务中，价值是在提供者和消费者之间的交互中创造的。因此，在设计商业模式时，公司必须考虑客户的意义创造活动，这些活动是高度主观的，并受到文化框架和个人特征的影响。然而，商业模式文献在很大程度上忽视了公司如何设计商业模式来阐明新的含义并塑造客户认知。在这项研究中，我们探讨了商业模式设计在决定公司如何表达客户随后感知的新含义方面的作用。我们提出了一个由同一企业家开发的两个商店概念的比较案例研究，这两个概念都引入了相同的新含义。通过对创始人兼首席执行官的深入采访、店内观察和档案数据，我们分析了他们引入新含义的策略。此外，我们将主题建模应用于在线评论，以检查客户如何解释这些新含义。我们的研究结果表明，公司可以通过商业模式设计来塑造客户对新含义的看法，特别是通过利用与价值交付相关的价值创造机制。本研究丰富了商业模式设计文献，并将其与意义话语的创新联系起来。它还为从业者提供了有关如何使用公司策略向客户传达预期含义的见解。