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Following recent calls from sustainable business model and transition research, we establish the link between both fields. We systematically integrate existing knowledge on business models into the well-established multi-level perspective on socio-technical transitions and identify three roles of business models and their respective impact on transition dynamics: (1) As part of the socio-technical regime , existing business models hamper transitions by reinforcing the current system's stability, (2) as intermediates between the technological niche and the socio-technical regime , business models drive transitions by facilitating the stabilization process of technological innovation and its breakthrough from niche to regime level, and (3) as non-technological niche innovation , novel business models drive transitions by building up a substantial part of a new regime without relying on technological innovation. We illustrate our findings with examples from the German energy sector and discuss our contributions to (sustainable) business model and transition research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]