The study aims at identifying the role of business model innovations (BMI) within the innovation activities of firms, with a special focus on the link between BMI and product and process innovation. The study focuses on the situation in small and medium-sized enterprises. The following research questions are addressed:

• How are BMI defined in the literature, and which definition of BMI is adequate from a business and innovation economics perspective, and how does such a definition compare to the definition of innovation in the Oslo Manual?
• What role does digitalization play in the creation of BMI and what is the relationship between BMI and new forms of digitalization?
• How widespread are BMI in German medium-sized businesses in different size classes, industries and age groups, and how does the distribution of BMI differ according to companies' basic competitive strategies (e.g. R&D-based strategies)?
• What are the determinants of BMI in medium-sized companies and how do they differ from the determinants of product and process innovations and digitalization activities?
• How can the BMI concept be evaluated from an innovation economics and innovation statistics perspective?

Methodologically, the study includes, on the one hand, a conceptual analysis based on the existing scientific literature on BMI. On the other hand, a detailed empirical study is carried out based on company data. The data sources are, firstly, the KfW SME Panel, which included a question about BMI in the 2023 survey wave, and secondly, ZEW's Mannheim Innovation Panel (MIP), which included an identical question about BMI together with questions about digital elements in the 2020 survey wave the companies' business models.