Library science

Marketing

Thematic analysis

Pure mathematics

Field (mathematics)

Computer science

Conceptual framework

Business

Qualitative research

Regional science

Emerging markets

Mathematics

Political science

Sociology

Content analysis

Citation

Data science

Citation analysis

MEDLINE

Finance

Knowledge management

Bibliographic coupling

Scopus

Bibliometrics

Social science

Journal of Business Research

This study reviews the franchising literature on emerging markets. We used the Bibliometrix R-package and VOSviewer software to perform a bibliometric analysis of 297 articles between 1989 and 2020 obtained from the Scopus database. We combined bibliometric coupling, historiographic citation, keyword co-occurrence, and conceptual thematic analysis, with a content analysis of the most cited articles based on total global and local citations. We identified two main research clusters: international franchising and social franchising. This article provides a deep understanding of the intellectual and conceptual structure of the academic field. It complements existing qualitative reviews and attempts at characterizations, and suggests future research directions.

Franchising research on emerging markets: Bibliometric and content analyses