Mobile commerce global publications: A quantitative and qualitative assessment during 2007-16

Abstract

The paper provides quantitative and qualitative description of mobile commerce research, as covered in Scopus database during 2007-16. Mobile commerce research registered 7.29 per cent growth, and averaged 3.78 citations per paper. The global output in mobile commerce research in 10 years was 4803 publications but just top 10 countries contributed bulk of (80.66 %) global publications share and 90.39 per cent global citations share during the period. China (with 30.0 per cent global publications share) is the world leader in mobile commerce research, followed by USA (15.59 % share) and others. The paper also provide information on their relative citation index, their international collaborative publications share, activity index of sub-fields in mobile commerce research and bibliographic characteristics of 25 highly cited paper. The paper also reports on top 20 most productive global organisations and authors in mobile commerce research and describes their characteristics on a series of parameters. The study concludes that mobile commerce research is still in its early stages of growth and development and not growing fast, as fast as mobile penetration. There is a need to provide institutional funding and policy support to R&D institutions to accelerate research growth, build and strengthen their research capacities, and encourage national and international research collaboration in this important area.