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The purpose of this study is to review and analyze the status of word-of-mouth (WOM) research in the business-to-business (B2B) context and discuss and identify new possible future directions.

A systematic review was conducted and 36 articles on B2B WOM were collected to evaluate the current state of the literature and clarify possible future research directions.

This thematic analysis categorize these articles into three themes: WOM generation, WOM usage and reference marketing. Under each theme, the authors reveal research findings unique to B2B research and different from business-to-consumer (B2C) WOM research. This study identifies several research questions that should be addressed by future research.

Both academic researchers and business practitioners recognize that WOM plays an essential role in B2B marketing. However, no review paper focuses on WOM in the B2B context. Findings in the B2C WOM literature suggest that WOM substantially influences firms’ performance, but that managers cannot simply attempt to extrapolate B2C findings to the B2B arena. By synthesizing and assessing prior research on WOM in the B2B context, this study contributes to a better understanding of the B2B WOM phenomenon and facilitates future research on this topic.

The aim of this paper is to review and synthesise the recent advancements in the business model literature and explore how firms approach business model innovation.

A systematic review of business model innovation literature was carried out by analysing 219 papers published between 2010 and 2016.

Evidence reviewed suggests that rather than taking either an evolutionary process of continuous revision, adaptation and fine-tuning of the existing business model or a revolutionary process of replacing the existing business model, firms can explore alternative business models through experimentation, open and disruptive innovations. It was also found that changing business models encompasses modifying a single element, altering multiple elements simultaneously and/or changing the interactions between elements in four areas of innovation: value proposition, operational value, human capital and financial value.

Although this review highlights the different avenues to business model innovation, the mechanisms by which firms can change their business models and the external factors associated with such change remain unexplored.

The business model innovation framework can be used by practitioners as a “navigation map” to determine where and how to change their existing business models.

Because conflicting approaches exist in the literature on how firms change their business models, the review synthesises these approaches and provides a clear guidance as to the ways through which business model innovation can be undertaken.

Recommender systems collect information about users and businesses and how they are related. Such relation is given in terms of reviews and votes on reviews. User reviews gather opinions, rating scores and review influence. The latter component is crucial for determining which users are more relevant in a recommender system, that is, the users whose reviews are more popular than the average user’s reviews.

A model of measure of user influence is proposed based on review and social attributes of the user. User influence is also used for determining how influenced has been a business being based on popular reviews.

Results indicate there is a connection between social attributes and user influence. Such results are relevant for marketing, credibility estimation and Sybil detections, among others.

The proposed model allows search parameterization based on the social attribute weights of users, reviews and businesses. Such weights defines the relevance on each attribute, which can be adjusted according to the search needs. Popularity results are then a function of weight preferences on user, reviews and businesses data join.

Social relationships play an important role in organizational entrepreneurship. They are crucial to entrepreneurs’ decisions because, despite the bleeding-edge technological advancements observed nowadays, entrepreneurs as human beings will always strive to be social. During the COVID-19 pandemic many companies moved activities into the virtual world and as a result offline Social relationships became rarer, but as it turns out, even more valuable, likewise, the inter-organizational cooperation enabling many companies to survive.

This chapter aims to develop knowledge about entrepreneurs’ SR and their links with inter-organizational cooperation. The results of an integrative systematic literature review show that the concept of Social relationships, although often investigated, lacks a clear definition, conceptualization, and operationalization. This chapter revealed a great diversity of definitions for Social relationships, including different scopes of meaning and levels of analysis. The authors identify 10 building blocks and nine sources of entrepreneurs’ Social relationships. The authors offer an original typology of Social relationships using 12 criteria. Interestingly, with regard to building blocks, besides those frequently considered such as trust, reciprocity and commitment, the authors also point to others more rarely and narrowly discussed, such as gratitude, satisfaction and affection. Similarly, the authors discuss the varied scope of sources, including workplace, family/friendship, past relationships, and ethnic or religious bonds. The findings of this study point to a variety of links between Social relationships and inter-organizational cooperation, including their positive and negative influences on one another. These links appear to be extremely dynamic, bi-directional and highly complex.

This paper aims to contribute to better understanding of where and how network concepts, theories and perspectives, organisational networks, and networking practices, are being studied and deployed in social enterprise research. This is done through a systematic review of social enterprise and networks literature in business and management journals. Key trends and developments in this literature, and gaps and limitations, are identified, culminating in discussion of what next for social enterprise and networks research. The papers in this special issue on “Social Enterprise and Networks” are introduced.

A systematic review was undertaken of social enterprise and networks literature in business and management journals. Journals sampled included all those in the Entrepreneurship and Small Business subject area of the Association of Business Schools (ABS) Academic Journal Guide 2018, the journals in the Financial Times 50 research ranking, and selected wider business and society, non-profit management and public administration journals.

Analysis of publishing patterns of social enterprise and networks research finds that such research is growing, and that varied network perspectives, concepts and theories are being deployed. Social enterprise and networks are also being studied globally, using different methodologies. Nevertheless, there remains scope for deeper theoretical engagement, and for a wider range of network theories to be used. More even geographic coverage is also needed, and further insights can be gained through use of alternative methodologies.

Discussions in this paper have implications for research through outlining systematically the state of current scholarship on social enterprise and networks. In so doing, insight is provided on what is known about social enterprise and networks. But also on what is not known and where further enquiry is needed. Direction is thus provided for future social enterprise and networks scholarship.

In this paper, how, and the extent to which, social enterprise and networks scholarship offers implications for practice and policy is considered.

This paper makes a valuable contribution to social enterprise scholarship. It outlines the state of current knowledge and research on social enterprise and networks, identifying where and how relationships between social enterprise and networks have been studied, whilst also providing insights for what next in future social enterprise and networks research.

As quarterly business reviews (QBRs) remained unexplored in the scholarly community, this paper sheds light on what QBRs are, how they are being used across organisations and provides deep insights into the implementation of the QBR at an incumbent car manufacturer’s digital transformation business unit. Particular attention has been paid to decision processes, portfolio management, challenges and success factors.

Given the explorative nature of the research, a case study is well suited to explore the phenomenon in its real-world context, especially given the dynamic and volatile business environment. This article is based on insights from an incumbent car manufacturer undergoing a business-wide transformation.

The car manufacturer introduced the QBR process and themes to improve business effectiveness and efficiency through (1) focusing on the biggest issues, (2) concentrating efforts, (3) providing autonomy and stability, (4) building and maintaining strong relationships, and (5) building domain expertise. Through the QBR process, themes were (de)prioritised, resources allocated, financial value (estimates) agreed upon, and key performance indicators (e.g. £m/FTE; FTE, full-time equivalent employees) introduced. Digital product managers’ were assigned to the prioritised themes, and portfolio management structures were presented.

Managing short- and long-term objectives is challenging for most businesses but essential to perform well in uncertain environments. The QBR process can help organisations continuously (de)prioritise work and reallocate resources based on changing environments and aligned with strategic priorities.

The field of scientific research on small and medium-sized family businesses has been growing exponentially and the aim of this paper is to systematize the body of knowledge to develop an agenda for the future.

Adopting comparative bibliometric analyses on 155 articles (from 1989 until 2018) the authors provide a systematic assessment of the scientific research about small family firms, unveiling the structure and evolution of the field. Bibliographic coupling, co-citation analysis and co-occurrence analysis are adopted to identify the most influential studies and themes.

Four clusters of research are reviewed: succession in family SMEs, performances of family SMEs, internationalization of family SMEs and organizational culture of family SMEs.

This paper contributes to the field of family SMEs by providing a systematic analysis of the scientific knowledge. Reviewing those clusters allows to providing avenues and reflections for future research and further practice.

The purpose of this paper is to offer a comprehensive overview of current research on customer behavior in the business-to-business (B2B) context and propose a research agenda for future studies. Despite being a relatively recent area of interest for academics and practitioners, a literature review that synthesizes existing knowledge into coherent topics and outlines a research agenda for future research is still lacking.

Drawing on a systematic literature review of 219 papers and using a text-mining approach based on the Latent Dirichlet Allocation algorithm, this paper enhances the existing knowledge of B2B customer behavior and provides a descriptive analysis of the literature.

From this review, ten major research topics are found and analyzed. These topics were analyzed through the lens of the Theory, Context, Characteristics and Method framework, providing a summary of key findings from prior studies. Additionally, an integrative framework was developed, offering insights into future research directions.

This study presents a novel contribution to the field of B2B by providing a systematic review of the topic of customer behavior, filling a gap in the literature and offering a valuable resource for scholars and managers seeking to advance the field.