Bibliometric network analysis of thirty years of islamic banking and finance scholarly research.

ABSTRACT

This study utilizes bibliometric analyses to map and visualize the development, conceptual structure, and thematic evolution of the Islamic Banking and Finance (IB&F) scholarly research. It analyses 464 WoS IB&F research publications of 921 authors comprising 58 countries published over three decades from 1990 to 2019. The results reveal that (i) collaboration among countries is limited and institutional collaboration can be described as a "locally concentrated and globally isolated," (ii) the IB&F research is a type of "small-world-network" where few authors and journals dominate the networks and play a central role in the diffusion of knowledge and the "homophily impact" is present among the leading authors of the IB&F research, (iii) the networks in IB&F research reflects the "Matthew Effect," implying that few authors have a more significant number of networks compared to the rest of authors. The study has also identified the conceptual structure and thematic trends in the IB&F research and provides avenues for future research.