Mapping the Evolution of the European Union Retail Supply Chain Technology Management: A Bibliometric Analysis

Abstract

Effective supply chain management (SCM) technology is crucial for the success of retail businesses in the European Union (EU). This research thesis aims to employ bibliometric analysis to provide a comprehensive examination of global contributions and contemporary keyword trends in the field of SCM technology within the EU. Using the Web of Science database, a systematic search was conducted, resulting in a total of 3,173 relevant articles. Bibliometric Analysis and VOSviewer (VOS) were employed to analyze the research landscape. The analysis shows that although this topic is based on the European Union, the scientific productivity and influence on the topic from China, Britain and the United States are higher than that of many EU countries. The European Journal of Operational Research emerged as the most influential journal in terms of both productivity and impact. Affiliations primarily consisted of universities, with a significant contribution from five universities showing consistent growth in research productivity. The results of Network visualization and Thematic Map analysis results of keywords show that technology-based red keyword clustering is very important for the research in this field, including demand response, microgrids, algorithms, price, policies, simulation and so on. This analysis highlights the importance of technology-related topics in the supply chain of EU retailers.