Digitalization and Internationalization: A bibliometric approach and content analysis

Abstract

The concept of digitalization is evolving, and there is greater interest in researching the relationship between digitalization and internationalization. The objective of this study is to identify and visualize the intellectual structure and dynamics of the internationalization and digitalization field, due to the lack of studies with this approach. This research is based on bibliometric analysis and a systematic review of the literature to identify, evaluate, and synthesize all the relevant studies from the existing literature related to digitalization and internationalization. A science mapping based on co-occurrence analysis of keywords with SciMAT software is employed to identify the basic themes of a scientific field, showing conceptual and cognitive aspects, the composition of the research field, its evolution, and future challenges. The results identify consolidated, emerging, and declining topics in the research field. Moreover, results also identify four main lines of research that provide a comprehensive and interconnected view of the research on this topic. This research contributes to identifying the main research areas in the field, the key contributions that have led to its dissemination, the factors that interest researchers the most, and the trends that have emerged. Future lines of research are also proposed. All these allow future researchers to design new research to further develop this field.