---
title: "Business innovation research: papers and trends"
description: "From 2017 to 2026 (so far), the keyword “business innovation” appeared in 724 papers in the tracked journals, most of them in economics (243), management (232) and finance (190)."
url: https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/business-innovation
markdown_url: https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/business-innovation.md
license: CC BY-NC 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/)
share_text: "From 2017 to 2026 (so far), the keyword “business innovation” appeared in 724 papers in the tracked journals, most of them in economics (243), management (232) and finance (190). (as of 2026-11-04)"
data_url: https://scholar4ai.com/data/rankings.json
updated: 2026-11-04T00:03:46+09:00
window: 2026-10-06 to 2026-11-04
source: OpenAlex (CC0)
---

# Papers on “business innovation”

Research on “business innovation” in the 480 tracked journals: papers per year and category, the journals, institutions and countries publishing it, the keywords studied with it and its most-cited papers. It is not among the most frequent keywords of the last 30 days, so this page has no list of its latest papers.

Back to the ranking: https://scholar4ai.com/rankings/keywords.md

## Key findings

- From 2017 to 2026 (so far), the keyword “business innovation” appeared in 724 papers in the tracked journals, most of them in economics (243), management (232) and finance (190).
- 115 of them were published in 2025, against 40 in 2017.
- Since 2023, the institutions with the most of these papers were Central University of Finance and Economics (12), Zhongnan University of Economics and Law (12) and Nanjing University of Finance and Economics (10).
- The journals publishing most of them were Finance research letters (61), International Review of Economics & Finance (24) and Research Policy (21).
- The most-cited of them is “To be or not to be digital, that is the question: Firm innovation and performance” (Journal of Business Research, 2018), with 764 citations.

## Papers per year

*Papers per publication year and category*

| Category | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 | 2026 (so far) |
|---|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|
| [Economics](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/economics.md) | 15 | 12 | 18 | 28 | 16 | 22 | 31 | 38 | 34 | 29 |
| [Management](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/management.md) | 13 | 12 | 27 | 16 | 21 | 27 | 26 | 24 | 35 | 31 |
| [Finance](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/finance.md) | 7 | 5 | 7 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 30 | 39 | 40 | 20 |
| [Accounting](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/accounting.md) | 0 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 4 | 3 | 1 |
| [Operations Research](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/operations-research.md) | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 0 | 3 | 1 | 4 |
| [Marketing](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/marketing.md) | 2 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 |
| [Information Systems](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/information-systems.md) | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| [Higher Education and Research](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/higher-education-and-research.md) | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| [Tourism and Hospitality](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/tourism-and-hospitality.md) | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| [AI](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/ai.md) | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| All categories | 40 | 33 | 55 | 64 | 59 | 70 | 91 | 110 | 115 | 87 |

## Where the papers come from

*Journals with the most papers, since 2023*

| # | Journal | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | [Finance research letters](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/finance-research-letters.md) | 61 |
| 2 | [International Review of Economics & Finance](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/international-review-of-economics-finance.md) | 24 |
| 3 | [Research Policy](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/research-policy.md) | 21 |
| 4 | [Economic Analysis and Policy](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/economic-analysis-and-policy.md) | 19 |
| 5 | [Technovation](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/technovation.md) | 18 |
| 6 | [Journal of Innovation & Knowledge](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/journal-of-innovation-knowledge.md) | 18 |
| 7 | [International Review of Financial Analysis](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/international-review-of-financial-analysis.md) | 16 |
| 8 | [Journal of Business Research](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/journal-of-business-research.md) | 12 |
| 9 | [The Journal of Technology Transfer](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/the-journal-of-technology-transfer.md) | 12 |
| 10 | [Technological Forecasting and Social Change](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/technological-forecasting-and-social-change.md) | 11 |

*Institutions with the most papers, since 2023*

| # | Institution | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | [Central University of Finance and Economics](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/central-university-of-finance-and-economics.md) | 12 |
| 2 | [Zhongnan University of Economics and Law](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/zhongnan-university-of-economics-and-law.md) | 12 |
| 3 | [Nanjing University of Finance and Economics](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/nanjing-university-of-finance-and-economics.md) | 10 |
| 4 | [Shanghai University of Finance and Economics](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/shanghai-university-of-finance-and-economics.md) | 10 |
| 5 | [Xiamen University](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/xiamen-university.md) | 9 |
| 6 | [Peking University](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/peking-university.md) | 8 |
| 7 | [Renmin University of China](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/renmin-university-of-china.md) | 8 |
| 8 | [Southwestern University of Finance and Economics](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/southwestern-university-of-finance-and-economics.md) | 8 |
| 9 | [Tsinghua University](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/tsinghua-university.md) | 8 |
| 10 | [Wuhan University](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/wuhan-university.md) | 8 |

*Countries with the most papers, since 2023*

| # | Country | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | China | 256 |
| 2 | United States | 57 |
| 3 | United Kingdom | 41 |
| 4 | Italy | 24 |
| 5 | Australia | 21 |
| 6 | Germany | 15 |
| 7 | Spain | 15 |
| 8 | Hong Kong | 13 |
| 9 | France | 11 |
| 10 | Japan | 9 |

*Keywords with the most papers, since 2023*

| # | Keyword | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | [China](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/china.md) | 69 |
| 2 | [financial constraints](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/financial-constraints.md) | 65 |
| 3 | [R&D investment](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/r-d-investment.md) | 62 |
| 4 | [Chinese listed companies](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/chinese-listed-companies.md) | 49 |
| 5 | [state-owned enterprises](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/state-owned-enterprises.md) | 46 |
| 6 | [digital transformation](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/digital-transformation.md) | 26 |
| 7 | [listed companies](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/listed-companies.md) | 24 |
| 8 | product innovation | 22 |
| 9 | process innovation | 21 |

## Most-cited papers

*Most-cited papers since 2017*

| # | Citations | Per month | Title | Journal | Published | Authors |
|---:|---:|---:|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 764 | 8.0 | [To be or not to be digital, that is the question: Firm innovation and performance](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2018.11.013) | [Journal of Business Research](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/journal-of-business-research.md) | 2018-11-15 | João J. Ferreira, Cristina Fernandes, Fernando A. F. Ferreira |
| 2 | 505 | 5.9 | [The mediating role of knowledge application in the relationship between knowledge management practices and firm innovation](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jik.2019.08.002) | [Journal of Innovation & Knowledge](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/journal-of-innovation-knowledge.md) | 2019-09-26 | Egena Ode, Rajenthyran Ayavoo |
| 3 | 473 | 6.7 | [Economic policy uncertainty (EPU) and firm carbon emissions: Evidence using a China provincial EPU index](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eneco.2020.105071) | [Energy Economics](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/energy-economics.md) | 2020-12-17 | Jian Yu, Xunpeng Shi, Dongmei Guo et al. |
| 4 | 407 | 5.3 | [Quantity or quality? The impacts of environmental regulation on firms’ innovation–Quasi-natural experiment based on China's carbon emissions trading pilot](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.techfore.2020.120122) | [Technological Forecasting and Social Change](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/technological-forecasting-and-social-change.md) | 2020-06-19 | Jiangfeng Hu, Xinxin Pan, Qinghua Huang |
| 5 | 406 | 4.4 | [R&D internationalization and innovation: A systematic review, integrative framework and future research directions](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2019.03.031) | [Journal of Business Research](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/journal-of-business-research.md) | 2019-03-27 | Demetris Vrontis, Michael Christofi |

## Cite this page

Scholar4AI. (2026). Papers on “business innovation”. Journal and Conference Research Rankings. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/business-innovation

```bibtex
@misc{scholar4ai-keywords-business-innovation,
  author = {{Scholar4AI}},
  title = {Papers on “business innovation”},
  year = {2026},
  howpublished = {\url{https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/business-innovation}},
  urldate = {2026-11-04},
  note = {Journal and Conference Research Rankings; data from OpenAlex (CC0); licensed CC BY-NC 4.0}
}
```

License: CC BY-NC 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/).