Abstract
Purpose - Small businesses are facing evolving environments, with a resulting need to shift their traditional approaches toward new business models (BMs). Many face difficulties within this transition process due to their specific resource constraints. Based on this, incremental changes to the BM - business model transition (BMT) - are proposed as comprising a suitable framework for entrepreneurial small businesses. Design/methodology/approach - This study conducts a systematic literature review (SLR) to cover a broad range of relevant literature within a final sample of 89 articles. The SLR method was chosen to integrate research in a systematic, transparent and reproducible way. For qualitative analysis and framework derivation, the study draws on a thematic ontological analysis. Findings - The broad search criteria, focusing on BM, incremental BM changes and small businesses, pave the way for a comprehensive overview of multiple research streams of BM concepts (e.g. digital and sustainable BM). The main contribution of this work is the resulting holistic BMT framework, comprising the main parts BM innovation, external antecedents (transition of environment, entrepreneurial ecosystem), internal antecedents (dynamic capabilities, entrepreneurial orientation, resilience, strategy) and output (firm performance). Practical implications - The framework provides guidance for entrepreneurs and entrepreneurial managers to implement and complete BMT in small businesses. Furthermore, the presented paper sets a future research agenda focusing on small businesses structured according to the derived framework. Originality/value - This study provides the first SLR of existing BM concepts with a small-business specific perspective on BMI and a focus on various incremental BM changes.