Abstract:

For a long time, managing the relationship between business and society has been one of the main topics of business literature. How to realize sustainable business model innovation has always been a dual challenge in both theoretical and practical fields, embedding corporate social responsibility (CSR) into business model innovation is considered to be a feasible way. However, such issues about "how is CSR embedded and how does it affect business model innovation?" still remain poorly understood in current studies. The purpose of this paper is to understand “how CSR is embedded in business model innovation and also its impact on business model innovation"In order to answer the above questions, this paper uses an exploratory single case study method to conduct research. The questions discussed in this paper address new issue that has not been fully solved by the existing research. They focus on the theoretical hypothesis and are suitable for the exploratory case study. At the same time, the single case study can help us better understand the background of the case and ensure the depth of the case study. Based on the reasons such as case representativeness, compatibility and data availability, this paper chooses the cultural and tourism business of Wanda group as the case study object, collects data through multiple methods, including semi-structured interviews, second-hand materials, field research etc., and conducts a longitudinal analysis of the development process of cultural and tourism business in Wanda group according time sequence. Through in-depth case analysis of the longitudinal development of the cultural and tourism business in Wanda Group, this paper reveals the mechanism of the process to embed CSR into the business model innovation.The findings of the research suggest three main conclusions. Firstly, the CSR embeddedness is the process from marginal to core issues, and from traditional charity to the creating shared value concept. The cultural and tourism city business in Wanda Group has experienced three development stages: the profit-maximization oriented cultural and tourism industrial complex, the cultural and tourism city with budding of CSR, and the red tourism town with CSR embedded. In the early stage of cultural and tourism industrial complex, profit maximization occupied the leading position, and there was basically no clear CSR action and awareness within Wanda Group. The commercial success has promoted the awakening of CSR awareness in Wanda Group, but CSR is still a marginal issue in this stage and has not become the main tone affecting business model innovation of Wanda Group. However, in the stage of red tourism town, CSR has become the soul of cultural and tourism business model in Wanda Group. CSR has been placed at the core of the business model of "red tourism town" and is the key driving force of business model remodeling in Wanda Group. In the evolution of Wanda cultural and tourism business model, CSR has gradually changed from a marginal issue to a core issue of the business model, and its business model has completed the transformation from profit maximization to value creation. Wanda Group has embedded the concept of "creatingshared value" into its business model innovation activities, and reconstructed its business model through red tourism town. While solving social problems that intersect with its cultural and tourism businesses and creating social value, it has also created the economic value of the enterprise. Secondly, this paper reveals the complicated mechanism between CSR embeddedness, corporate survival crisis and business model innovation. At the beginning, business model innovation is not necessarily need CSR get involved, Wanda Group started the business model innovation of cultural and tourism industry complex under the guidance of profit maximization. Although business model innovation does not necessarily require the stimulation of CSR, but successful business model innovation can stimulate the bud of CSR and provide necessary premise for the CSR embeddedness. Business model innovation will arouse the awareness of CSR and provide necessary preconditions for the embedding of CSR. However, although business model innovation will lead to the awakening of CSR consciousness, it will not form the embedding of CSR. The crisis of corporate survival is the trigger for the embedding of CSR. The awareness of CSR cannot ensure the continuous business success. The continuous excessive pursuit of profit maximization will inevitably lead to the loss of control of the business model and the formation of the enterprise survival crisis within the enterprise. Corporate survival crisis will lead to the business model smash, but corporate survival crisis, as a kind of strong stimulation, also eliminated the poor stimulus, will free the organization from the current assumptions and judgments. Corporate survival crisis is the trigger of embedding CSR into business model innovation, and make the CSR concept transfer from the "traditional CSR " to "creating Shared value", eventually form the CSRembeddings. Finally, this paper answers the impacts of embedding CSR into business model innovation. CSR embeddedness improves the robustness of business model. For the value proposition, CSR embeddedness helps to form a more robust growth space. After the embeddedness of CSR, the differentiated value proposition represented by red culture and intangible cultural heritage constitutes the soul of the new business model of red culture and tourism town, and morally opens up the growth space for Wanda Group. For the operation model, the embeddedness of CSR helps to form a broader community of interests. After the embeddedness of CSR, Wanda Group developed Wanda red cultural tourism projects through cooperation and joint venture, through the combination of public welfare and business, the company operates better, make more profits and gain higher reputation in the market in a relatively restrained and restrained way. In terms of the profit model, the embeddedness of CSR will help return to reasonable business profit. After the embeddedness of CSR, the cultural and tourism business of Wanda Group is no longer pursuit of vast profits in real estate simple and crude, but return to the reasonable profit of cultural and tourism industry. In short, embedding CSR is the important way to rebuild business model under the corporate survival crisis.The paper focuses on "how is CSR embedded and how does it affect business model innovation?” The findings explain the connotation of CSR embeddedness and answer the dynamic embedding process of CSR from the perspective of process. At the same time, the research links CSR and business model innovation which are two separate issues, and finds the direction and path for sustainable business model innovation. Through the description of the process, qualitative information, this paper reveals the black box of the process of embedding CSR into business model innovation, answers the complicated embedding mechanism of the inter circulatory promotion between CSR and business model innovation, provided structural theoretical hypothesis for relevant research topics.The final findings allow entrepreneurs and managers to better understand the process of embedding CSR into business model innovation. Moreover, the theoretical framework is a conceptual instrument that is useful in analyzing and evaluating alternative ways to develop both business and social interests-based on the "creating shared value" principle, will help more enterprises to realize sustainable business model innovation through CSR embeddedness.

Key words: business model innovation, corporate social responsibility, case study, Wanda Group