Consumer Culture in Emerging Markets : A Bibliometric Analysis of Research Evolution, Intellectual Structure, and Future Directions

This study examines the global research landscape and intellectual structure of consumer culture in emerging markets through a systematic bibliometric analysis of publications indexed in the Scopus database from 2006 to 2026. Using VOSviewer as the primary analytical tool, the study constructs and interprets keyword co-occurrence networks to identify dominant research themes, thematic clusters, temporal evolution patterns, and research density distributions within this rapidly evolving field, drawing on a cleaned dataset of 45 Scopus-indexed publications. The analysis reveals that consumer culture in emerging markets is firmly anchored around the constructs of emerging markets, consumer culture, and globalization, with consumption behavior, brand loyalty, and international marketing forming the core theoretical foundation. The findings demonstrate that the field has evolved from early acculturation and brand-positioning studies toward more recent research on Gen Z consumers, sustainability, eWOM, and ethical consumption. Overlay visualization reveals that the most recently active themes concern sustainability, environmental consciousness, and digitally mediated consumer behaviour, while density analysis confirms emerging markets and consumer culture as the most intensively studied constructs. These findings collectively offer a comprehensive map of the field's intellectual structure and identify promising directions for future scholarly inquiry, particularly regarding sustainability, digital platforms, and generational identity in shaping consumption practices across emerging economies.