---
title: "Mediation research: papers, trends and top journals"
description: "From 2017 to 2026 (so far), the keyword “mediation” appeared in 1,361 papers in the tracked journals, most of them in management (376), health economics and policy (278) and information systems (172)."
url: https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/mediation
markdown_url: https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/mediation.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 “mediation” appeared in 1,361 papers in the tracked journals, most of them in management (376), health economics and policy (278) and information systems (172). (as of 2026-11-05)"
data_url: https://scholar4ai.com/data/rankings.json
updated: 2026-11-05T06:02:37+09:00
window: 2026-10-07 to 2026-11-05
source: OpenAlex (CC0)
---

# Papers on “mediation”

[Browse research topics](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/directory/page/4.md)

Research on “mediation” 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 “mediation” appeared in 1,361 papers in the tracked journals, most of them in management (376), health economics and policy (278) and information systems (172).
- 138 of them were published in 2025, against 118 in 2017.
- Since 2023, the institutions with the most of these papers were University of Wisconsin–Madison (12), Education University of Hong Kong (10) and Peking University (10).
- The journals publishing most of them were Social Science & Medicine (66), Computers in Human Behavior (40) and Journal of Happiness Studies (25).
- The most-cited of them is “Green innovation and environmental performance: The role of green transformational leadership and green human resource management” (Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 2019), with 2,120 citations.

## Papers per year

*Papers per publication year and category*

| Category | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 | 2026 (so far) |
|---|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|
| [Management](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/management.md) | 32 | 46 | 41 | 31 | 40 | 38 | 36 | 44 | 33 | 35 |
| [Health Economics and Policy](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/health-economics-and-policy.md) | 23 | 18 | 20 | 33 | 32 | 32 | 29 | 27 | 35 | 29 |
| [Information Systems](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/information-systems.md) | 21 | 21 | 12 | 21 | 20 | 17 | 18 | 21 | 13 | 8 |
| [Economics](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/economics.md) | 17 | 29 | 21 | 22 | 20 | 9 | 9 | 8 | 16 | 17 |
| [Tourism and Hospitality](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/tourism-and-hospitality.md) | 12 | 13 | 12 | 14 | 18 | 22 | 13 | 10 | 6 | 4 |
| [Higher Education and Research](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/higher-education-and-research.md) | 7 | 7 | 6 | 10 | 10 | 20 | 14 | 15 | 19 | 13 |
| [Marketing](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/marketing.md) | 3 | 6 | 7 | 5 | 12 | 5 | 9 | 7 | 8 | 4 |
| [Operations Research](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/operations-research.md) | 3 | 3 | 5 | 3 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 3 | 4 | 1 |
| [Finance](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/finance.md) | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 |
| [Accounting](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/accounting.md) | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 4 |
| [AI](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/ai.md) | 0 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| [Statistics](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/statistics.md) | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| All categories | 118 | 145 | 127 | 144 | 153 | 149 | 131 | 138 | 138 | 118 |

## Where the papers come from

*Journals with the most papers, since 2023*

| # | Journal | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | [Social Science & Medicine](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/social-science-medicine.md) | 66 |
| 2 | [Computers in Human Behavior](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/computers-in-human-behavior.md) | 40 |
| 3 | [Journal of Happiness Studies](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/journal-of-happiness-studies.md) | 25 |
| 4 | [Education and Information Technologies](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/education-and-information-technologies.md) | 22 |
| 5 | [SSM - Population Health](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/ssm-population-health.md) | 22 |
| 6 | [International Journal of Hospitality Management](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/international-journal-of-hospitality-management.md) | 20 |
| 7 | [Future Business Journal](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/future-business-journal.md) | 18 |
| 8 | [Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/journal-of-retailing-and-consumer-services.md) | 15 |
| 9 | [Journal of the Knowledge Economy](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/journal-of-the-knowledge-economy.md) | 12 |
| 10 | [Journal of Business Research](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/journal-of-business-research.md) | 11 |

*Institutions with the most papers, since 2023*

| # | Institution | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | [University of Wisconsin–Madison](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/university-of-wisconsinmadison.md) | 12 |
| 2 | [Education University of Hong Kong](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/education-university-of-hong-kong.md) | 10 |
| 3 | [Peking University](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/peking-university.md) | 10 |
| 4 | [University of Hong Kong](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/university-of-hong-kong.md) | 10 |
| 5 | [Chinese University of Hong Kong](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/chinese-university-of-hong-kong.md) | 8 |
| 6 | [Korea University](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/korea-university.md) | 8 |
| 7 | [Hong Kong Polytechnic University](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/hong-kong-polytechnic-university.md) | 7 |
| 8 | Nottingham Trent University | 7 |
| 9 | [Beijing Normal University](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/beijing-normal-university.md) | 6 |
| 10 | [Kyung Hee University](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/kyung-hee-university.md) | 6 |

*Countries with the most papers, since 2023*

| # | Country | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | China | 142 |
| 2 | United States | 115 |
| 3 | United Kingdom | 54 |
| 4 | Hong Kong | 34 |
| 5 | Australia | 30 |
| 6 | Germany | 30 |
| 7 | South Korea | 30 |
| 8 | India | 28 |
| 9 | Malaysia | 25 |
| 10 | Canada | 23 |

*Keywords with the most papers, since 2023*

| # | Keyword | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | moderation | 113 |
| 2 | [gender differences](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/gender-differences.md) | 28 |
| 3 | [older adults](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/older-adults.md) | 24 |
| 4 | [university students](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/university-students.md) | 24 |
| 5 | life satisfaction | 21 |
| 6 | adolescents | 20 |
| 7 | [depression](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/depression.md) | 19 |
| 8 | [moderating effect](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/moderating-effect.md) | 19 |
| 9 | depressive symptoms | 18 |

## Most-cited papers

*Most-cited papers since 2017*

| # | Citations | Per month | Title | Journal | Published | Authors |
|---:|---:|---:|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2,120 | 25.2 | [Green innovation and environmental performance: The role of green transformational leadership and green human resource management](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.techfore.2019.119762) | [Technological Forecasting and Social Change](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/technological-forecasting-and-social-change.md) | 2019-11-01 | Sanjay Kumar Singh, Manlio Del Giudice, Roberto Chierici et al. |
| 2 | 795 | 7.2 | [Knowledge-based human resource management practices, intellectual capital and innovation](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2017.07.018) | [Journal of Business Research](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/journal-of-business-research.md) | 2017-08-05 | Aino Kianto, Josune Sáenz, Nekane Aramburu |
| 3 | 780 | 10.9 | [Analyzing the relationship between green innovation and environmental performance in large manufacturing firms](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.techfore.2020.120481) | [Technological Forecasting and Social Change](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/technological-forecasting-and-social-change.md) | 2020-11-24 | Shafique Ur Rehman, Sascha Kraus, Syed Asim Shah et al. |
| 4 | 769 | 7.6 | [Transformational leadership and employee performance: The role of identification, engagement and proactive personality](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhm.2018.06.014) | [International Journal of Hospitality Management](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/international-journal-of-hospitality-management.md) | 2018-06-19 | Isabel Buil, Eva Martı́nez, Jorge Matute |
| 5 | 669 | 6.4 | [Leadership behavior and employee well-being: An integrated review and a future research agenda](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.leaqua.2017.12.006) | [The Leadership Quarterly](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/the-leadership-quarterly.md) | 2018-02-01 | Ilke Inceoglu, Geoff Thomas, Chris W. L. Chu et al. |

## Cite this page

Scholar4AI. (2026). Papers on “mediation”. Journal and Conference Research Rankings. Retrieved November 5, 2026, from https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/mediation

```bibtex
@misc{scholar4ai-keywords-mediation,
  author = {{Scholar4AI}},
  title = {Papers on “mediation”},
  year = {2026},
  howpublished = {\url{https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/mediation}},
  urldate = {2026-11-05},
  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/).