What Do We Know About Asian Nonprofit Research? A Systematic Review and Bibliometric Analysis of 60 Years of Progress and Regional Variations

This article seeks to facilitate future development of theory and empirical research about Asian nonprofits by examining published knowledge accumulated over 60 years of scholarly research on nonprofits across Central, East, South, Southeast, and West Asia. Our systematic literature review and bibliometric analysis of 2,188 articles published in English peer-reviewed journals from 1958 to 2022 reveals that while there is evidence of knowledge integration with mainstream nonprofit and NGO studies, Asian nonprofit research has evolved as a distinct field with significant country- and region-level variations in research scale and trends, research topics shaped by region-specific phenomena, available data that affect scholars’ choices of research methods, and theoretical development and application. These findings suggest both the advances and challenges associated with future Asia-focused nonprofit research, particularly emphasizing the importance of conducting comparative studies. The article discusses directions to advance Asian nonprofit research and implications for general nonprofit research.