Charting the temporal evolution of stakeholder involvement in business model for sustainability: A comprehensive bibliometric review

Abstract

This paper aims to explore and analyse the temporal evolution of the concept of stakeholder involvement, highlighting the transformations, influences, and interpretations that this concept has undergone over the years. The particular setting is business models for sustainability (BMfS). Through in‐depth bibliometric literature review and critical analysis, co‐citation analysis is used to identify the past themes in the topic and bibliographic coupling analysis to explore its recent developments. Future developments of the themes are then outlined. The paper proposes a conceptual framework called Sustainability Strategy Map for Stakeholder Involvement that can help organisations move towards business models for sustainability, acting on purpose, architecture and involvement to achieve outcomes. The goal is to create a detailed map of the evolution of this concept over time, highlighting crucial milestones, controversies, and connections with other key concepts. Major results show that, compared with the past, recent research is more practical, improvement‐oriented, expanded to polluting industries and focused on economic performance. Finally, stakeholder involvement shifted from management and engagement to integration, a deeper and longer connection characterised by a strategic relationship.