Circular economy business models: The state of research and avenues ahead

TLDR

The study investigates how circular economy concepts relate to business models in current business and management literature, and includes a qualitative review to illustrate quantitative findings. Using bibliometric analysis of 253 articles, the authors applied network analysis with VOSviewer to map key terms, uncover research gaps, and supplemented this with a qualitative review of selected publications. The analysis revealed networks of core topics—business models, circular economy, value, supply chain, transition, resource, waste, reuse—and identified emerging themes around managerial, supply‑side, demand‑side, networking, performance, and contextual aspects of circular business models.

Abstract

Abstract This study investigates how the circular economy and business models are related in the current business and management literature. Based on bibliometric analytical procedures, 253 articles were retrieved from the Scopus, Web of Science, and ScienceDirect scientific databases. The articles were analyzed according to network analysis principles, and key terms were mapped into a network. We used VOSviewer to build the network, explore the most‐researched terms and their relationships, and identify less‐explored terms and research gaps. We furthermore conducted a qualitative review of selected publications to provide an illustration of quantitative results and delve deeper into the research topics. The main findings revealed the networks of current topics as they appear in the publications such as business models, the circular economy, circular business models, value, supply chain, transition, resource, waste, and reuse, and their most prevalent relationships. The results also highlighted several emerging topics such as those connected with managerial, supply‐side, demand‐side, networking, performance, and contextual considerations of circular business models.