Scientometric analysis and dimensions on international business literature

Abstract

The paper discusses the trend of world literature on “International Business” in terms of the output of research publications as indexed in the Social Sciences Citation Index during the period from 2004 to 2013. A total of 3131 journals and 1623 papers were indexed on international business in the database during the 10 year study period. The average number of papers published per year was 162.30. The highest numbers of papers, i.e., 268 (16.513 %) were published in the year 2010. The author Eden L and Causgil ST have shared the top position who wrote the highest publications, i.e., 13 (0.801 %) each. The source title Journal of International Business Studies contained the highest number with 359 (22.12 %) publications. The most popular research area is Business Economics in which the highest number of publications, i.e., 1442 (88.848 %) counted. The United States contributed highest number of publications, i.e., 616 (37.954 %) among the total of 62 counties who contributed on the subject. Most productive institution was University of Leeds, which contributed a total of 28 (1.1164 %) publications among the total of 513 organizations. Articles amounted to 1329 (81.885 %) of the literature on international business. The study will help researchers and authors who can identify the most appropriate, influential journals in which to publish, as well as confirm the status of journals in which they have published (Hasan et al. in Proceedings of the fourth international conference of the digital libraries, 27–29 November 2013 New Delhi, India. TERI, New Delhi, pp 319–329, 2013). It will help professors, academicians and students who can discover where to find the current reading list in their respective fields (Krishna and Kumar in SRELS J Inf Manag 41(2):229–234, 2004). The publishers and editors can determine journals’ influence in the marketplace and review editorial functions (Chuang et al. in Scientometrics 87(3):551–562, 2011). The educational institutions, business groups, to look into the trends and make appropriate policies related to international business on the basis of inferences depicted from the analysis. The administrators, policy and planning makers can track bibliometric and citation patterns to make strategic and funding decisions (Arora et al. in Curr Sci 104(3):307–315, 2013). The librarians and information analysts can support selection or removal of journals from their collections, and determine how long to keep each journal in the collection before archiving it (Trivedi in Libr Philos Pract, 1–6, 2010).