Digital Economy and SME Research Landscape: A Bibliometric Analysis of Emerging Themes and Trends

This study aims to map the research landscape on the digital economy and Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) through bibliometric analysis of 130 Scopus-indexed articles. The study identified publication trends, influential sources, geographical contributions, and the evolution of research themes from 2001 to 2024. Data were collected using a custom query on Scopus and analysed with R Studio software and the bibliometrix package. Results show a significant increase in academic interest in this topic, especially after 2015, which is in line with the wave of global digital transformation. Key findings include the dominance of themes such as "digital economy," "e-commerce," and "digital transformation" as highly developed core themes, while themes such as "small and medium-sized businesses" and "economy and society" were identified as emerging but under-explored areas. The study also found significant geographical disparities, with China leading in number of publications, but the UK and Pakistan showing the highest impact based on average citations per article. This study contributes by filling the literature gap through mapping the evolution of research themes and providing guidance for future research to focus on less developed yet crucial areas. The findings provide valuable insights for researchers, policymakers and practitioners in supporting SMEs to maximise the potential of the digital economy.