Scientometric evaluation and visual analytics of the scientific literature production on entrepreneurship, small business ventures, and innovation

Abstract

This study offers the first scientometric analysis, visual analytics, and visualization of the documents published in the Journal of Small Business and Entrepreneurship (JSBE). The paper utilizes big data analytics and network analysis to analyze the production trends of articles, the citation impacts, and the research focus covering the period 1996 to 2019. The intellectual and social structures of the articles are also evaluated. Data for the analyses comes from the 535 articles produced by JSBE and indexed on SCOPUS. The results highlight four outcomes. First, the average annual literature production rate is 3.53%, with astronomical upward trend occurring in recent years, and the articles' productivity and impacts. Second, the visual and text analytics of scientific production and visualization reveals the terms dynamics, the thematic trends, intellectual structure, and clusters of the literature showing themes and topics covered by the articles published in JSBE. Third, the social and network structures of the scientific production highlight the impacts and patterns of cooperation and collaboration among authors and the associated institutions and countries. Finally, the overall results indicate that the published research papers align with the aims and scope of JSBE and point to areas that need to attract more articles to satisfy the Journal’s multidisciplinary goals. The paper contributes to the scholarship of integration. It provides a guide to scholars in the field of entrepreneurship, small business, and innovation, and particularly the readers of JSBE, the opportunity to identify the past research streams as a pointer to areas requiring future work.