Patterns of scientific communication on E-commerce: a bibliometric study in the Scopus database

Abstract

Research requires policies that help define the lines of work and that favor the production of knowledge in areas that interest the states. E-commerce is carried out through the Internet as any transaction or exchange of commercial information based on data transmission. This manuscript aims to describe the global, regional and national trends and patterns of scientific production in E-commerce in Scopus. We applied a descriptive bibliometric method (cross-sectional descriptive observation) of the scientific production on E-commerce indexed in the Scopus database from 2011 to 2020. The universe consisted of 20667 documents. A sustained increase in scientific production was evidenced after 2015. The conference and original articles stood out regarding the number of documents. The most cited documents were review articles, books, and original articles. Statistically significant correlations were found between the analyzed productivity and impact indicators. After 2018, more works on e-commerce were published; but more citations of works published before this year were generated. That is, there is an expansion of E-commerce and, in turn, a decrease in the pattern of literature consumption. Most of the articles on e-commerce were contributed by Chinese authors, followed by those from the United States and India.