How Do Business Models Influence the Sustainability of Entrepreneurial Firms? -the Case of Health Information Exchanges

Although business models have been widely implicated as key influences on the performance of firms, empirical studies investigating the relationship between business models and performance are limited. In this study, we theorize and propose to empirically examine the influence of two elements of a business model: organizational form and revenue model on the sustainability of new ventures. We contextualize our study to health information exchanges (HIEs) that are new business ventures in healthcare engaged in providing information exchange services across healthcare stakeholders. We propose to use a unique archival data set constructed from surveys of HIEs in the US from 2008 to 2010 for the empirical analysis to explore the influence of for-profit organizational form, and transaction and subscription based revenue models on financial sustainability and operational maturity of the HIEs. We discuss the possible research and managerial implications of this study.