Business Model Imitation: Definition and Typology

The concept of Business Model Imitation (BMIm) has not been developed adequately in the strategic
management field, even though it has been recently used extensively by researchers. This gives us
impetus to propose a definition of BMIm highlighting the distinction between several types of BMIm.
On the basis of such an outlook, we will clarify the ambiguities in the literature related to this concept showing that imitating a competitor’s Business Model (BM) does not necessarily mean imitating all the components of a BM.