(Bibliometric Analysis of Electronic Word-Of-Mouth Communication in Marketing Literature)

Abstract

Purpose – In parallel with the increase in the number of scientific researches and the globalization of science, bibliometric studies have become a significant research area. The aim of this study is to investigate the studies on electronic word of mouth (eWOM) with a bibliometric method. Design/methodology/approach – In the research, a total of 439 articles in the Web of Science (WoS) between the years 2006 and 2018 were analyzed using bibliometric indicators such as the number of articles, the number of citations, the most publishing universities, and author network analysis. Findings – The results of the study may be useful in identifying the leading authors and researches in the field of eWOM and in the literature review and topic identification stages for researchers for their new studies. As for the results, the total number of citations is 8645 and the average number of citations is 19,96. The h-index of the articles has been observed as 45. The article of Litvin, Goldsmith and Pan which was written in 2008 about eWOM is rated as the most cited article examined in the research with 739 citations. The organization that has sent the most articles to the field with 16 articles is the State University of Florida. In addition, the research topic which has been the subject of articles and the mostly-written on is Business Economics. Discussion – The study shows that electronic mouth-to-mouth communication has been discussed in different academic areas not just im marketing. With the spread of the internet and the emergence of social media since the beginning of the 2000s, academics paid attention to electronic word of mouth communication in qualitative and quantitavie researches. In last two decades every year researches on eWOM has increased. International literature has not gained pioneering researches from Turkey.