While the terms Circular Economy and sustainability are increasingly gaining traction with academia, industry, and policymakers, the similarities and differences between both concepts remain ambiguous. The relationship between the concepts is not made explicit in literature, which is blurring their conceptual contours and constrains the efficacy of using the approaches in research and practice. This research addresses this gap and aims to provide conceptual clarity by distinguishing the terms and synthesising the different types of relationships between them. We conducted an extensive literature review, employing bibliometric analysis and snowballing techniques to investigate the state of the art in the field and synthesise the similarities, differences and relationships between both terms. We identified eight different relationship types in the literature and illustrated the most evident similarities and differences between both concepts.@en

Business model innovation is increasingly seen as a key competitive factor in B2B settings. In this context, prototyping, experimentation, and piloting have gained prominence as agile and resourceful methods that can be employed in business model innovation pursuits. Yet, despite increasing interest in this area, and the growing number of large B2B companies who also started deploying these methods, there is a lack of clarity on the conceptual boundaries between the three concepts. This may impede the advancement of business model innovation research and practices based on the three concepts. We address this gap by conducting a structured literature review, using cross-reference searches and a key informant interview study of 43 executives in 13 B2B organisations. We offer three contributions: (1) definitions for each of these three concepts, (2) seven dominant similarities and (3) five key differences across them. Our research shows that the concepts serve distinct purposes at different stages of the business model innovation process, and we discuss these findings and their broader implications for the literature on business model innovation and for innovation management practices in B2B companies.@en