Bidding for B2B or B2G tenders: toward the adoption of pricing models in practice

Abstract

This study investigates the lack of adoption of pricing models for tenders in business- to-business (B2B) and business-to-government (B2G) markets. We aim to identify the gaps between research and practice and propose a future research agenda to bridge these gaps. Our study contributes in three ways: First, we outline how our research agenda can influence the adoption of pricing models across specific practitioner roles in tendering. Second, we introduce systematic science mapping (SSM) as a novel methodology for literature reviews. SSM combines a systematic review and science mapping in a multi-stage, mixed-methods research design. We chart the evolution of 1042 research publications from 1956 to 2022 into three thematic areas. Our review of 163 gray literature publications reveals seven schools of thought on tender price modeling and the causes of theory-to-practice gaps. Finally, we introduce a new metric, the mapping factor (MAPF), as a robustness indicator for systematic literature reviews.