Bias in Citation Visibility: Temporal Dynamics and the Unequal Life Cycle of Academic Articles—Evidence from SME and Internationalization Research

This study analyzes the temporal evolution of citations received by academic articles in the field of micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and internationalization processes, with the aim of identifying patterns of growth and decline in scientific visibility. Based on a dataset of 1936 articles retrieved from Scopus, we constructed an article–year panel that enabled the application of multiple statistical approaches. Discrete-time survival models showed that the annual probability of receiving at least one citation is initially low, increases slightly until the fifth year, and then declines progressively thereafter. Negative binomial regression confirmed significant growth during the first five years, followed by a slowdown. Kaplan–Meier estimations reinforced this finding by showing that the cumulative proportion of articles receiving their first citation within a decade remains limited. These results confirm that citation dynamics are nonlinear and subject to early obsolescence, with most visibility concentrated in the short term. Importantly, this temporal bias in indexing and evaluation systems disproportionately favors recent publications while undervaluing older but still influential research. Such structural bias has profound implications for visibility and equity in scholarly communication, especially for disciplines and regions where citation cycles are longer. The findings thus validate the study’s propositions: first, that citation growth slows significantly after the fifth year, and second, that this slowdown represents a structural bias that amplifies inequities in research evaluation.