Foundations and trends in business valuation: a bibliometric analysis of 20 years of research

Cuccurullo Corrado, Fiorentino Raffaele, Aria Massimo

This study provides an overview of the business valuation (BV) literature from 1995 through 2014. We employ bibliometric analysis on a sample of 150 published articles in 27 scientific journals of 4 subject categories. Through a content analysis, it studies the relationships between the subfields of BV. A multiple correspondence analysis provides a map of keywords and a framework to track this literature over the 20-year period. We also investigate major trends in BV literature including the contribution of most productive authors and different countries, variations across publication years, and identifying active research areas and major journal outlets. Our study serves as a resource for future studies by shedding light on how trends in BV research have evolved over time.

Key-Words: Valutazione d’azienda, Business Valuation; Bibliometric analysis; Content analysis; Conceptual structure; Multiple Correspondence Analysis