Discovering the systematic interlinkages among the circular economy, supply chain, industry 4.0, and technology transfer : a bibliometric analysis

A circular economy is needed to revamp obsolete business practices and rethink consumption to create new sectors that can change from the present linear production-consumption paradigm to creative and innovative efforts to reuse intermediate and final goods. While organizations are building intelligence capacities to succeed in a circular economy, it is useful to also identify and map the relationship of the circular economy to the supply chain, Industry 4.0, and technology transfer. This bibliometric analysis identifies rising, transversal, core, and decreasing topics to assist researchers and professionals in the understanding and direction of future studies. This study identifies primary authors and assesses the growth of the main topics of 673 sources published in the Web of Science between 2017 and 2020. With regard to scientific value, this study explores the research landscape of the circular economy and finds that it is strongly linked to Industry 4.0 and sustainable development. Keywords related to the circular economy are moderately related to supply chain management and Industry 4.0 but are less related to technological transfer. In addition, this study identifies six clusters of research themes and reveals a shift in research priorities toward the organic fraction, environmental sustainability, and convolutional neural networks. This study also highlights the need for more research on technological transfer and supply chains.