مصورسازی و ترسیم نقشه علمی مطالعات ریسک ورشکستگی با رویکرد علم‌سنجی

Purpose: The present study aims to comprehensively identify and analyze prolific journals, authors, and countries, as well as highly cited articles and core publications, and to map the conceptual, intellectual, and social structures of research on bankruptcy risk. By employing scientometric indicators and software tools, the study seeks to clarify the trends in scientific growth, intellectual linkages, and emerging research directions in this field. Examining bankruptcy risk from this perspective can provide a holistic picture of the current research landscape and reveal future research gaps for scholars.

Method: , Relevant keywords related to bankruptcy risk were searched in the titles, abstracts, and keywords of the Web of Science database on October 10, 2025 (18 Mehr 1404). After applying filters such as including only English-language publications and limiting results to the Economics, Finance and Business, Management, and Business categories, a total of 434 documents remained. These were downloaded in Plain Text format. Subsequently, the data were analyzed using Excel, VOSviewer, and the bibliometrix package in R.

Findings: The analysis revealed that over a 44-year period, from 1982 to 2025, 434 articles on bankruptcy risk were published across 241 journals, with an annual scientific production growth rate of 9.72%. The Journal of Banking and Finance, with 14 published papers, ranked first among journals publishing research on bankruptcy risk. Researcher Korol was identified as the most prolific author in the field with five related studies. The United States and China played leading roles in this domain, not only in terms of publication volume but also citation impact. The articles by Altman et al. (1994), Dechow (1998), Agarwal and Tafler (2008), and Verwijmeren & Derwall (2010) received the highest citations. Source spectral analysis showed that classic works published between 1966 and 1990 laid the foundational basis of bankruptcy risk literature. Keyword co-occurrence analysis indicated that the term bankruptcy risk (82 occurrences) was the most frequent and central concept in the network, showing the strongest co-occurrence with terms such as capital structure, firm performance, intellectual capital, emerging markets, and corporate social responsibility (CSR). The term bankruptcy was closely linked with corporate governance, financial distress, COVID-19, and liquidation. The overlay visualization map showed increasing research attention to new themes such as corporate life cycle, earnings management, supply chain management, and environmental, social, and governance (ESG) performance in recent years. Co-citation analysis revealed four main clusters, with the works of Altman, Beaver, and Ohlson serving as key nodes in the intellectual network. The author collaboration network identified Zhang and Tao as the most co-authoring researchers, while the country collaboration network showed strong academic partnerships between the United States and China.

Conclusion: The findings demonstrate that research on bankruptcy risk has evolved over more than four decades from a narrow, finance-centered topic into a multidimensional and interdisciplinary field with extensive conceptual, intellectual, and social linkages. The analysis of publication trends indicates steady and significant growth, along with the expansion of international research collaboration. The results also confirm that classical concepts such as the Altman and Ohlson models remain the core foundation of this field. However, in recent years, researchers have increasingly focused on emerging topics such as corporate social responsibility, intellectual capital, corporate life cycle, and ESG indicators within bankruptcy risk studies.