Mapping terrorism in the academic landscape of business field of study : a bibliometric study of the past 30 years

Purpose: Terrorism is as old as humanity itself, but its new form in the twenty-first century is adversely affecting the performance of businesses in both developing and developed countries. The purpose of this study is to identify and analyse the evolution and diffusion of academic knowledge on the topic of terrorism in business-related literature.

Design/methodology/approach: Data was gathered from two databases, namely, the Scopus and Web of Science over 30 years (1990–2019). The search terms related to terrorism in titles, abstracts and authors’ keywords, which resulted in a total of 1,097 articles. Bibliometric methods, including a thematic and content analysis identifying main themes and using Gephi and VOSviewer software, were used to analyse the data.

Findings: The results reveal the productivity of the main actors, current thematic choices and future research opportunities. The main thematic areas of the research arising from the bibliometric analysis included the impact of terrorism on economic growth, Foreign Direct Investment, tourism, stock market reforms, security of multinational corporations as a result of terrorism and finally, the impact of political instability and terrorism on business. This study’s findings may guide the research of future academics and assist policy stakeholders in their strategic choices related to future business development.

Research limitations/implications: The study has certain limitations that are inherent to the bibliometric methods or to the choices related to data collection and processing.

Practical implications: This study recognised evolution and trends regarding the influence of terrorism on businesses, which is crucial information for the development of business and policy strategies in the future. These strategies should enhance the ability of businesses to cope with the negative effects of terrorism and make these effects less devastating. For academics, this study provides relevant insights on recent research trends in the field of terrorism in business and emerging future academic thematic opportunities.

Social implications: The findings of the study indicate that issues of terrorism in business have broader social implications, which both academia and policy stakeholders can attend with their work.

Originality/value: This bibliometric review offers new insights into terrorism from the business lens by identifying the common streams of research in the field, along with the key journals, articles, countries, institutions, authors, data sources and networks in this field. The future research directions in this field of knowledge are also articulated in the study.

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