Scientometric Analysis of Research on Socioemotional Wealth

Scientometric studies have become very important within the scientific environment in general, and in the family firm area in particular. This study aims at conducting a bibliometric analysis of socioemotional wealth within family firms. To this end, a background search of the terms family firm and socioemotional wealth has been carried out in the Web of Science, specifically in specialized journals published between 1975 and 2019 in the Science Citation Index. The resulting scientometric analyses are of the number of papers and citations, the main authors and journals, the WoS categories, the institutions, the countries and the word co-occurrence. One of the main conclusions of this paper is the abundance of studies that have been conducted on socioemotional wealth in family firms, which is reflected in the number of publications (501) and of citations of these studies (12,090). Another significant revelation is the copious number of authors, with Gomez-Mejia being the most relevant one and De Massis the one with the highest number of publications. Also noteworthy are the many USA-based institutions, with the Mississippi State University and the University of North Carolina being the two most prominent. In addition, studies have been carried out about family firms' focus, mainly, on performance and ownership.

Automated summary

Scientometric analysis of socioemotional wealth within family firms reveals a wealth of research on this topic, including number of publications and citations, main authors and journals, research institutions and countries. The findings highlight the abundance of studies conducted on socioemotional wealth in family firms and the key areas of focus in these studies.