A bibliometric analysis of circular economy in the fields of business and economics: towards more action-oriented research

Abstract

In this paper, we reveal and systemize development trends in the scientific field of the circular economy (CE). Our results imply that academic research on the CE focuses heavily on theoretical conceptualizations and technological solutions. However, these advancements alone are unlikely to help prevent from ecological collapse. With this observation in mind, we explore the potential held by a more relational, action-based approach to support a faster and more efficient transition from the linear economy to the CE. A useful combination of several bibliometric techniques gave us valuable references for re-focusing this area of science to adopt action-oriented research where a group of stakeholders collaborates and co-creates solutions. An analysis of valuable action-oriented CE studies reveals that scholars focus on the techno-economic aspect, where they develop ways to create optimal circular material and energy flows and co-design processes for products/services, as well as the organizational aspect, where they study self-sustainable community networks and participatory governance. We identify three research streams that would benefit from such action-oriented research for a faster practical implementation: sustainable supply chains, waste management, and business model innovation. A practice-based agenda is proposed to stimulate the scientific community to conduct future research on a CE that better supports companies.

A bibliometric analysis of the literature on circular economy and sustainability in maritime studies

“…The node sizes showed the frequency of the keyword occurrences (Van Nunen et al, 2018 ). A few literature reviews in maritime studies used VOSviewer (e.g., Del Giudice et al, 2021 ; Di Vaio et al, 2022a ), although it was utilized in other research domains as well (Dominko et al, 2022 ).…”

“…No study, however, conducted a comprehensive bibliometric investigation to probe into the current status of CE in the literature on sustainability and the maritime industry. Other existing review articles addressed CE in such fields as business and economics (Dominko et al, 2022 ), Industry 4.0 (Okorie et al, 2018 ; Rosa et al, 2020 ), and business models (Centobelli et al, 2020 ; Pieroni et al, 2019 ).…”

Bibliometric analysis of sustainability papers: Evidence from Environment, Development and sustainability

“…To the best of our knowledge, there are 13 bibliometric analyses published in Environment, Development and Sustainability . These studies are related to sustainability issues in specific industries, such as economics (Dominko et al, 2022 ; Zhao & Zhang, 2022 ; Zárate-Rueda et al, 2021 ), tourism (Diéguez-Castrillón et al, 2022 ), real estate (Lazar & Chithra, 2021 ), agriculture (Dash et al, 2023 ; Mohd Razali et al, 2022 ), and health (Zyoud & Zyoud, 2021 ). While this study considers all sustainability papers published in Environment, Development and Sustainability and it will shed further light on this topic.…”

Circular economy and its reflection in research terminology

“…Dominko et al systematized the development trends of the scientific field of the circular economy (CE). The authors concluded that academic research on CE is largely focused on theoretical concepts and technological solutions 16 .…”