Mapping hotspots and emerging trends of business model innovation under networking in Internet of Things

Networking in Internet of Things (IoT) has had an immeasurable impact on the existing business models. In this context, exploring the hotspots and trends of business model innovation has become particularly necessary. For the topic literature over the past 20 years retrieved from Science Citation Index and Social Sciences Citation Index databases, scientometrics with information visualization technology was used to carry on the knowledge mapping with the following indicator: the co-cited reference networks, reference bursts, keyword bursts, and keyword co-occurrence networks. The results show (1) “e-commerce,” “open source,” “performance,” “entrepreneurship,” etc. are the main hotpots, and “value creation,” “open innovation,” “small business,” “networks,” etc. are the new hotpots; (2) the trends of hotspots transited from early “information technology” to later “self-service,” “mass customization,” and “biotechnology” and to present “cloud manufacturing,” “telemedicine,” “climate change,” and “sustainable development,”. etc.; (3) “intelligent robot,” “3D printing,” and the methodology of business mode innovation may be the future hotspots. This is the first paper visualizing the hotspots and emerging trends of business model innovation specially through scientometrics from a global perspective.