Abstract
During the last decades, we have seen building sustainable business models as an innovative part of the business strategy. Different economic sectors have used the concept to meet their economic objectives, and one of the leading business models with the highest growth in the last decade was e-commerce. It is not too much to emphasize the importance of sustainability in e-commerce in all its dimensions. We have seen several investigations on the subject covering a wide range of application areas. In this context, a systematic review of the bibliometric literature was carried out on the SCOPUS indexing database using the keywords “sustainability,” “e-commerce,” “electronic commerce,” “B2C e-commerce”, “business, management, and accounting” in the last decade (2012-2022). This study aims to understand how a sustainability strategy can leverage e-commerce.
TopMethodological Approach
A systematic bibliometric literature review (LRSB) methodology was used to comprehensively analyze the topics of e-commerce and sustainable strategies and how they intersect to promote sustainable business practices and economic development. The choice of LRSB was based on Donthu et al. (2021) description of the methodology as a helpful technique used for “deciphering and mapping the cumulative scientific knowledge and evolutionary nuances of well-established fields by making sense of large volumes of unstructured data in rigorous ways” (p.285). Given the popularity of both e-commerce and sustainability concepts, substantial research has been conducted to demonstrate how companies are applying them to achieve competitive advantage and promote sustainable production and consumption for the betterment of society and the environment. Thus, the approach was deemed more desirable.
Key Terms in this Chapter
Sustainable and/or Sustainability: Is a characteristic or condition of a process or a system that allows it to remain, at a certain level, for a certain period of time.
Business to Consumer (B2C): E-commerce model that takes place between business and consumer.
Consumer to Consumer (C2C): E-commerce model that takes place between two or more consumers.
Consumer to Business (C2B): E-commerce model that takes place between consumer and company.
Business to Administration (B2A): E-commerce model that takes place between the company and the administration.
Consumer to Administration (C2A): E-commerce model that takes place between the consumer and the administration.
Business to Business (B2B): E-commerce model that takes place between two companies.