Although it focuses more on expansion on prominent business model strategies rather than comparisons, you might be interested in reading an article that I co-authored a few years ago, "Expanding the Model of Competitive Business Strategy for Knowledge-Based Organizations". The article abstract states that  "The established competitive generic business strategy model continues to be the dominant paradigm, despite the rapidly changing internal and external environments that companies face today. This article evaluates other strategy-related elements identified in current business research and determines if an expanded model can be applied to companies that have become more knowledge-based organizations. Ten such companies are selected for case study examination of their generic strategy, purity of usage, innovation, strategic entrepreneurship and clarity. The results provide a potential basis for an expanded model of the dominant competitive business strategy paradigm that includes these additional elements and provides a framework for future research.'

Article Expanding the Model of Competitive Business Strategy for Kno...

An article titled Business Model Innovation, available at http://www.adb.org/publications/business-model-innovation, offers a primer on what Peter Drucker termed "the theory of the business" and juxtaposes half a dozen well-known schemata.

From a sustainability perspective - if that is also of interest - you could have a look at the following articles and studies that identify archetypes, patterns and innovation orientations for sustainable business models (I remember that many of the early articles, like e.g. Timmers (1998) propose typologies for e-business for example):

Bocken, N.; Short, S.; Rana, P. & Evans, S. (2014): A literature and practice review to develop sustainable business model archetypes, Journal of Cleaner Production, Vol. 65, pp. 42-56. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0959652613008032

Bisgaard, T.; Henriksen, K. & Bjerre, M. (2012): Green Business Model Innovation – Conceptualisation, Next Practice and Policy. Oslo: Nordic Innovation. [Note: final project report, accompanied by 5 sub-reports, http://www.nordicinnovation.org/Publications/]

Beltramello, A.; Haie-Fayle, L. & Pilat, D. (2013): Why New Business Models Matter for Green Growth. Paris: OECD Publishing. http://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/environment/oecd-green-growth-papers_22260935

[Source: http://blog.ssbmg.com/papers/]

Moreover - concerning LEADING researchers - you could also refer to Amit and Zott's four business model innovation strategies, or "gestalt themes": Lock-In, Novelty, Complementarities, Efficiency

Amit, R. & Zott, C. (2001): Value Creation in E-Business, Strategic Management Journal, Vol. 22, No. 6-7, 493–520. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/smj.187/abstract

Zott, C. & Amit, R. (2010): Business model design: an activity system perspective, Long Range Planning, Vol. 43, No. 2/3, 216–226. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0024630109000533

About archetypes Oliver Gassmann, Karolin Frankenberger & Michaela Csik from St Gallen university made some interesting research. They studied 250 business models over the last 25 years and identified 55 patterns for successful business model.

A summary of their work is freely accessible here: https://zework.files.wordpress.com/2014/03/st_galler_business_model_navigator.pdf

Their ideas are discussed more in detail in the book The Business Model Naviator (published in 2014): https://books.google.ch/books?id=h01HBQAAQBAJ&lpg=PT12&ots=cBLS9ypq1G&lr&pg=PT12#v=onepage&q&f=false

The book gives notably more details about the methodology to conduct business model innovation.

Dear Nicole,

I presented a paper on BM typologies and taxonomies at a conference in 2012 (Kamprath, M. & Halecker, B. (2012) A Systematic Approach for Business Model Taxonomy – How to operationalize and compare large Quantities of Business Models?, ISPIM Symposium, Seoul, Korea.). The results from the literature review are presented in a downloadable PDF here: http://www.varietyofinnovation.org/?p=473

A week ago our results from a research project is published in the Spinger publishing house. It contains the results from the conference paper but adds a an empirical research on BM types. The chapter is in German. If you don't have access, let me know. http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-658-08403-5_8

A very recent typology is made by Kesting, Günzel-Jensen (forthcoming), "SMEs and new ventures need business model sophistication", Business Horizons, doi:10.1016/j.bushor.2015.01.002.

About Gassmanm's book its a nice collection of blueprints. But you find nearly the same here: Abdelkafi, Nizar, Sergiy Makhotin, and Thorsten Posselt. "Business Model Innovations For Electric Mobility—What Can Be Learned From Existing Business Model Patterns?." International Journal of Innovation Management 17.01 (2013) and in the sources they quote.

I know some people working on the BM pattern corner.

But as Florian mentioned, there are several BM types mostly from an industry specific viewpoint. After my research on this topic I have to say that it is really difficult to group BMs in general or abstract them as icons for other BMs. Because BMs are systems with different components and relations between them, mapping out all entities of the components AND finding similaties between the relations is very challenging and can lead to misinterpretation.

http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-658-08403-5_8

http://www.varietyofinnovation.org/?p=473

Thanks Martin! In general, I wonder, whether Nicole's question addressed a very "meta" level - like comparing "canvas" approaches (Osterwalder and all its offspring), causal-loop approaches (e.g. Ricart), and more systemic approaches (e.g. Wirtz's nine sub-systems). That is, comparing schemata more in the sense of pure ontologies, without saying anything about "content", i.e. without filling the ontologies e.g. with industry or company specifics. Nicole, is this closer to your initial question?

Hi Nicole, these two might be very helpful:

Teece, D. J. 2010. Business models, business strategy and innovation. Long range planning 43 (2): 172–194.

Chesbrough, H. 2007. Business model innovation: it's not just about technology anymore. Strategy & leadership 35 (6): 12-17.

Dear all,

Thank you very much for contributing to my question!

As a researcher in the field of entrepreneurship, I’m interested in the reflection of differences and similarities of Business Models on rather a “meta” level. Instead of viewing Business Models from a specific industry or company perspective (as it is often done in research), I’m looking for existing literature that compares existing prominent “schemata/concepts/approaches” of business models with different abstraction levels from reality. These schemata can be, for example, narratives (e.g., Perkman/Spicer), archetypes (e.g., the freemium approach from Osterwalder/Pigneur), graphical frameworks (e.g., Osterwalder/Pigneur or Johnson), or meta-models (e.g., Casadesus-Mansanel/Ricart or Amit/Zott). So my focus here is not on the specific content of business models but rather on similar or different components of business model schemata/concepts/approaches. I hope this answers your question, Florian!

Your help is greatly appreciated- thank you all again for providing literature that has been “under my radar” so far!

Ok, it goes more in the direction of "What are business models" (how to think about them). I like this chapter:

Business Model Innovation

Lorenzo Massa and Christopher L. Tucci

The Oxford Handbook of Innovation Management

Edited by Mark Dodgson, David M. Gann, and Nelson Phillips

Have a look on Fig. 2... maybe this fits more with your question.

http://www.businessmodelcommunity.com/fs/Root/azvri-BM_Innovation_Oxford_Handbook_of_Innovation_Management.pdf

Very interesting research topic nicole. So you are trying to explain what make a model/concept   a Model in Business Model......  although i can't provide a direct answer to your question I might be able to provide you with a literature studying about model.

Justi, R., & Gilbert, J. (2000). History and philosophy of science through models: some challenges in the case of'the atom'. International Journal of Science Education, 22(9), 993-1009.

For one thing, based on my observation 3 , or 4 or 5 focus is the predominant idea in creating a model of framework... I think there were previous study that shows that Humans can only focus on 7 items. or less... more than that would be overbearing.. Ohw now that I remember somehow this is related to providing Scientific explanations (Relevance, testability, Compatibility, predictive power, simplicity) so i think in a way a Business Model behaves like a scientific explanation;.. with a particular business model you are assured that you will gain so and so benefits.

http://www.philosophypages.com/lg/e15.html

I hope that helps :)