The Rural Economy and Family Firms: A Bibliometric Analysis Through Scientific Maps

Abstract

Since the beginning of the research on the family business and rural economy, there has been a problem with the delimitation of the concepts. Given this problem, this study’s main objective was to identify and visualize the intellectual structure of these two issues through scientific maps. To meet this objective, an evaluation of scientific performance and production was carried out with bibliometric indicators to extract the main research topics around these two areas through an analysis of the co-occurrence of keywords with scientific maps. The results show that research on family businesses and rural economy is booming, especially on family businesses that have higher productivity and performance. Regarding the main topics studied regarding family businesses and the rural economy, a total of 16 main themes were detected, highlighting the topic of entrepreneurship. The study of land management in transboundary environments is a potential line of future research.