Consultants and pundits assert that the business-to-business (B2B) buying process has changed markedly in recent years due to the emergence of online, digital applications and software. Recognizing that impactful, and truly innovative future research is perhaps best created when built on the foundation of past science, we review the arc of B2B buying process modeling from 1956 to the present. Our goals with this research are to: 1. capture the genealogy and evolution of thinking across the years in terms of foundation theories, reasoning approach, types of models, factors researched, and journals in which articles were published, 2. identify the thematic inflection points in the research stream that have led to the current conceptualizations, and 3. suggest a research agenda for the future. We discovered that academic understanding of the B2B buying process has progressed in waves featuring seven themes – transactions, situations, influences, responses, relationships, networks and journeys. Looking to the future, we recommend that scholars examine five areas of research: the impact of technology, modes of customer and supplier interaction, decision-making approaches, tensions between internal and external communities, and B2B marketing analytics. •There are seven thematic inflection points in the B2B buying process research stream.•The research waves have moved from transactions, situations, influences, responses, relationships, networks and journeys.•Scholars in the future should examine key issues of the impact of technology on the B2B buying process.