Recent studies have shown that professionals in the built environment need new or improved business strategies to survive in increasingly dynamic and competitive environments. To gain insight into how professional businesses can be successfully reshaped, a profound understanding of their business models is necessary. So far, business model research in project-based organisations has focused on large companies that are primarily profit-oriented. Work that addresses the business challenges of small, creative service firms is extremely limited. This study aims to develop knowledge around the business models of architectural firms by focusing on their value propositions, value creation and value capture. Iterating between business model literature and empirical data from 41 semi-structured interviews with Dutch architects and clients, architectural firms’ business models were systematically examined regarding their configurations and outcomes. This resulted in an overview of key business model components, their interrelationships and accompanying challenges for architectural firms. The study contributes to theory and practice by the development of a strategic decision making framework that specifically addresses the business model challenges of small creative service firms. The framework helps practitioners to enhance their business strategies and to develop new or improved business models with increased benefits.@en

In response to changing demands and competition, professionals engage in boundary work to negotiate their roles in relation to other actors. While most research on boundary work of professionals has investigated the socio-political dimension of the profession as a whole, we take a relational perspective to analyse how roles are being negotiated on a day to day basis in inter-organisational projects. We focus on architecture as an established profession, which has long been embedded in role structures of the building industry but since the financial crisis experienced an erosion of their share of the declining volume of work. We identified three different strategies with which architects attempt to reclaim their role: 1) profession-oriented reinstating of their role, 2) project-oriented flexible adjusting of the role to serve the client, and 3) firm-oriented entrepreneurial attempts to claim a new role. For each strategy we discuss the relational implications in the interaction to other actors in the field.@en