Business Models in the Past, Present and Future: Review and Citation Analysis

This paper analyzes theoretical and practical empirical results on business model research in a selected scientific database - Thomson Reuters's Web of Science. A dataset of 2,683 records published between 1952 and 2017 was collected and analyzed through the Java application for visualizing trends - CiteSpace. A network of co-citation references was created and labelled by the most-cited author. It has been found out that among the most cited authors belong the following: D. J. Teece, C. Zott, H. Chesbrough, A. Osterwalder, R. Casadesus-Masanel, B. Demil and C. Baden-Fuller. Moreover, 226 clusters of co-citated references were identified and overall properties of the network were supported by the modularity Q and the mean silhouette scores. Furthermore, phrases from the titles of articles that cited a particular cluster were extracted and visualized in a network emphasizing key topics on the business model research having been addressed in the scientific literature till 2017. Among top 5 topics that have formed the research in the given period belong business model innovation, real business cycle model, business process modelling, solution-specific business model and business model frameworks. The paper concludes by summarizing key findings and noting the limitations of the study.