Strategic Stakeholder Involvement in Business Model for Sustainability: a bibliometric investigation

The purpose of this paper is to study the topic of stakeholder involvement in business models for sustainability (BMfS), discussing its evolution over time. The bibliometric analysis methodology uses co-citation analysis to identify the basis of the topic and bibliographic coupling analysis to explore new themes. The paper then proposes a framework of reference for stakeholder involvement in BMfS, where the central roles are played by culture and strategy (opportunities, business orientation and sustainability culture), organization and processes (relationships, capabilities, technologies, communication, and implementation) and outcomes (innovation, performance and impacts). The framework is called Sustainability Strategy map for Stakeholder involvement and is then discussed recognizing the strategic role of stakeholders in generating sustainability and economic performance. Major results show that, compared to the past, recent research is more practical, improvement-oriented, expanded to high impact sectors. Then, stakeholders are involved with a deeper and longer connection (stakeholder integration). Finally, while in the past environmental performance have been the centre of investigation, economic performance returns central in the recent literature.