Purpose: The aim of this paper is to asses and analyze how service innovation enables sustainable business model (SBM) development through resource integration/value co-creation, which is embedded on social and environmental perspectives. The objective is to look deeper on how resources are integrated and value is co-created within the service system for a SBM development based on public transit (PT) context.

Design/methodology/approach: The paper will be of an explorative nature. It is built around three concepts - (i) service innovation (ii), business models and (iii) Sustainability. Business models and resource integration for sustainable public transport services are allow us to deeply assess drivers of change based on these concepts. The paper will illustrates these concepts with three different PT cases from Gothenburg- Sweden, Cape Town-South Africa, and Jakarta-Indonesia.The focus is Volvo Bus Corporation (VBC) based on these three different case studies around the globe to understand the service system and developing a SBM.

Findings: The study will reveal that service innovation is a way of building a coherent SBM embedded in social and environmental contexts for integrating resources and creating value. This leads towards new understanding and strategies of the shift from and beyond providing buses to providing services and to new sustainable business models. The study is not to be the design of a new system, but to utilize the influence of the demand for sustainable system, which has thus contributed to the service research and sustainability discussions.

Research limitations/implications: Future research in this area should focus on generalizing the present findings by studying the development and integration of SBM thinking in other empirical settings and conceptualization.

Originality/value: The paper makes an original contribution to the study of public transit by explicitly linking the adoption of SBM and service innovation based on sustainability, and resource integration/value co-creation.

Article Type: research paper