A systematic review of customer behavior in business-to-business markets and agenda for future research

Abstract

PurposeThe 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.Design/methodology/approachDrawing 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.FindingsFrom 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.Originality/valueThis 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.