Tracing The Business Model: A Bibliometric Study On Intellectual Roots

In order to add to the theoretical understanding of the business model concept and to proffer future research recommendations, an analysis of relevant literature was completed via a co-citation analysis of the primary business literature and an abstract analysis of all cited papers in relevant disciplines. The theoretical basis for the business model literature was found to be the resource based view of the firm, incumbent survival, open innovation and the management of uncertainty. Gaps were identified in the areas of customer value proposition and business start-ups. To address these gaps and to further the current focus on business model innovation the suggestion for future research is to reconceptualization the interactions between business model components. To this point the literature describes this as a casual chain between resources and competencies, through customer value proposition to revenue, where in fact the relationship is more complex and it is the manipulation of all components that produces value generation and value capture – or valid business model.