Looking back to move forward: A bibliometric analysis of consumer privacy research

Abstract

Information privacy has attracted considerable attention in the information system research field. However, little effort has been made to review its latest developments from a marketing perspective. As research on consumer privacy advances rapidly, a comprehensive evaluation of the field is required. In this paper, two bibliographic databases retrieved from Web of Science were used to perform a series of bibliometric analyses consisting of co-citation analysis, co-occurring keyword analysis, and structural variation analysis. To facilitate these analyses, we use the software CiteSpace. Our results present the existing literature’s publication performance, thematic concentration, intellectual turning points and influential studies, and identify emerging trends in the literature. We found that a number of landmark studies has greatly affected the development of the consumer privacy research. Most importantly, this study proposes a research agenda for the field. Recent emerging topics focusing on privacy calculus, privacy ethic, privacy enhancing technologies, privacy-related coping strategies, and new contemporary privacy contexts should be further discussed in the future research.