A bibliometric analysis of the structure and trends of customer engagement in the context of international marketing
International Marketing Review
ISSN: 0265-1335
Article publication date: 14 March 2022
Issue publication date: 4 August 2022
Abstract
Purpose
Research in customer engagement (CE) has gained momentum in the last decade, thanks to its growing popularity among scholars and practitioners. The Marketing Science Institute (MSI), for instance, has been continually listing CE as part of its Tier I research priorities since 2010. CE scholars have also studied the construct in the international marketing context. Hofstede's characterization of cultures as either individualist or collectivist helped scholars explain the need for different CE strategies across countries, and the domain seems to be evolving ever since. The ever-growing interest of CE scholars in the international market and cross-cultural scenarios requires a comprehensive and scientific review of the literature. Using bibliometric analysis, this study fills this critical gap by mapping the intellectual structure of CE research in the context of international marketing and provides future research directions to scholars in this domain.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors have used VOSviewer and Biblioshiny software packages to conduct a bibliometric analysis of 109 articles in the domain.
Findings
The major findings include the most influential countries, journals, articles and authors, the different research streams and their development and the future research directions in the domain. When CE is considered in an international marketing context, four broad themes emerged. The first theme is about differences in customer engagement behaviors across cultures. The second theme is about the development of CE and related constructs. The third theme relates to how brands have used CE and CBE (customer brand engagement) across different international contexts. The fourth theme is all about the conceptual and methodological support for the study of CE.
Originality/value
This study is a novel attempt at providing a comprehensive bibliometric analysis of CE research in the international marketing context, using a combination of VOSviewer and Biblioshiny software packages.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
The authors thank the anonymous reviewers, the editor, and Professor Demetris Vrontis, the associate editor for their invaluable suggestions to improve this manuscript.
Citation
Srivastava, M. and Sivaramakrishnan, S. (2022), "A bibliometric analysis of the structure and trends of customer engagement in the context of international marketing", International Marketing Review, Vol. 39 No. 4, pp. 836-851. https://doi.org/10.1108/IMR-06-2021-0204
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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