---
title: "Research in March 2025: top topics and papers"
description: "In March 2025, the tracked journals published 3,971 papers (finance 694, accounting 66, economics 849, management 421, operations research 459, AI 1,482). The most frequent keywords were “China” (144), “Chinese listed companies” (100) and “corporate governance” (81)."
url: https://scholar4ai.com/reports/2025-03
markdown_url: https://scholar4ai.com/reports/2025-03.md
license: CC BY-NC 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/)
share_text: "In March 2025, the tracked journals published 3,971 papers (finance 694, accounting 66, economics 849, management 421, operations research 459, AI 1,482)."
data_url: https://scholar4ai.com/data/rankings.json
updated: 2026-10-26T14:52:47+09:00
window: 2026-09-27 to 2026-10-26
source: OpenAlex (CC0)
---

# Research published in March 2025

What the tracked finance, accounting, economics, management, operations research and AI journals published in March 2025, by publication date in OpenAlex. This page is a fixed monthly record: its address does not change. Counts can still grow a little as late papers are indexed, and citations are updated daily.

## Key findings

- In March 2025, the tracked journals published 3,971 papers (finance 694, accounting 66, economics 849, management 421, operations research 459, AI 1,482).
- The most frequent keywords were “China” (144), “Chinese listed companies” (100) and “corporate governance” (81).
- Compared with their share in the twelve months before, the keywords that grew most were “large language models” (59 papers, +24), “transformer models” (41 papers, +19) and “artificial intelligence” (48 papers, +18).
- The institutions with the most papers were Chinese Academy of Sciences (62), Tsinghua University (58) and Wuhan University (52).
- China was involved in 46% of the papers.
- The most-cited paper published that month is “BERT applications in natural language processing: a review” (Artificial Intelligence Review), with 258 citations so far.

## Papers by category

*Papers published in March 2025*

| Category | Papers |
|---|---:|
| [Finance](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/finance.md) | 694 |
| [Accounting](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/accounting.md) | 66 |
| [Economics](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/economics.md) | 849 |
| [Management](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/management.md) | 421 |
| [Operations Research](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/operations-research.md) | 459 |
| [AI](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/ai.md) | 1,482 |

## Top keywords

*Most frequent keywords, March 2025*

| # | Keyword | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | [China](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/china.md) | 144 |
| 2 | [Chinese listed companies](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/chinese-listed-companies.md) | 100 |
| 3 | [corporate governance](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/corporate-governance.md) | 81 |
| 4 | [financial constraints](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/financial-constraints.md) | 73 |
| 5 | state-owned enterprises | 65 |
| 6 | [COVID-19 pandemic](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/covid-19-pandemic.md) | 61 |
| 7 | [large language models](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/large-language-models.md) | 59 |
| 8 | moderating effect | 52 |
| 9 | [contrastive learning](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/contrastive-learning.md) | 51 |
| 10 | [artificial intelligence](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/artificial-intelligence.md) | 48 |
| 11 | attention mechanism | 47 |
| 12 | [graph neural networks](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/graph-neural-networks.md) | 44 |
| 13 | [emerging markets](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/emerging-markets.md) | 43 |
| 14 | [information asymmetry](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/information-asymmetry.md) | 42 |
| 15 | [green innovation](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/green-innovation.md) | 42 |

## Growing keywords

*Papers in March 2025 beyond the keyword's share in the twelve months before*

| Keyword | Papers | At earlier share | Extra papers |
|---|---:|---:|---:|
| [large language models](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/large-language-models.md) | 59 | 34.5 | +24.5 |
| transformer models | 41 | 22.2 | +18.8 |
| [artificial intelligence](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/artificial-intelligence.md) | 48 | 29.6 | +18.4 |
| generative AI | 30 | 13.7 | +16.3 |
| [knowledge distillation](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/knowledge-distillation.md) | 32 | 20.9 | +11.1 |
| technological innovation | 26 | 14.9 | +11.1 |
| income inequality | 29 | 18.1 | +10.9 |
| graph attention networks | 19 | 8.4 | +10.6 |
| human-AI collaboration | 14 | 3.5 | +10.5 |
| entrepreneurial ecosystems | 15 | 4.8 | +10.2 |

## Top keywords by category

*The five most frequent keywords per category, March 2025*

| Category | Most frequent keywords |
|---|---|
| [Finance](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/finance.md) | Chinese listed companies (81); China (66); corporate governance (57); financial constraints (57); state-owned enterprises (52) |
| [Accounting](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/accounting.md) | corporate governance (8); earnings management (5); board independence (4); emerging markets (4); COVID-19 pandemic (3) |
| [Economics](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/economics.md) | China (65); income inequality (24); COVID-19 pandemic (22); gender differences (22); economic growth (21) |
| [Management](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/management.md) | generative AI (16); research agenda (13); corporate social responsibility (12); moderating effect (11); small and medium-sized enterprises (11) |
| [Operations Research](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/operations-research.md) | mixed integer programming (16); mixed-integer linear programming (16); makespan minimization (15); multi-objective optimization (14); demand uncertainty (13) |
| [AI](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/ai.md) | contrastive learning (51); large language models (51); attention mechanism (46); graph neural networks (41); transformer models (41) |

## Institutions

*Institutions with the most papers, March 2025*

| # | Institution | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | [Chinese Academy of Sciences](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/chinese-academy-of-sciences.md) | 62 |
| 2 | [Tsinghua University](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/tsinghua-university.md) | 58 |
| 3 | [Wuhan University](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/wuhan-university.md) | 52 |
| 4 | [Hong Kong Polytechnic University](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/hong-kong-polytechnic-university.md) | 51 |
| 5 | [Xi'an Jiaotong University](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/xi-an-jiaotong-university.md) | 50 |
| 6 | [Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/centre-national-de-la-recherche-scientifique.md) | 49 |
| 7 | [Zhejiang University](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/zhejiang-university.md) | 48 |
| 8 | [Beihang University](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/beihang-university.md) | 43 |
| 9 | [Beijing Institute of Technology](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/beijing-institute-of-technology.md) | 41 |
| 10 | Harbin Institute of Technology | 41 |

## Countries

*Countries, March 2025*

| # | Country | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | China | 1,816 |
| 2 | United States | 599 |
| 3 | United Kingdom | 356 |
| 4 | Germany | 199 |
| 5 | France | 198 |
| 6 | Italy | 197 |
| 7 | Australia | 188 |
| 8 | India | 157 |
| 9 | Hong Kong | 123 |
| 10 | Canada | 122 |

## Journals

*Journals with the most papers, March 2025*

| # | Journal | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | [Expert Systems with Applications](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/expert-systems-with-applications.md) | 310 |
| 2 | [Finance research letters](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/finance-research-letters.md) | 192 |
| 3 | [Knowledge-Based Systems](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/knowledge-based-systems.md) | 137 |
| 4 | [International Review of Financial Analysis](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/international-review-of-financial-analysis.md) | 129 |
| 5 | [Pattern Recognition](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/pattern-recognition.md) | 114 |
| 6 | [Applied Intelligence](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/applied-intelligence.md) | 113 |
| 7 | [Neural Networks](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/neural-networks.md) | 107 |
| 8 | [Neural Computing and Applications](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/neural-computing-and-applications.md) | 96 |
| 9 | [Energy Economics](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/energy-economics.md) | 84 |
| 10 | [AI & Society](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/ai-society.md) | 81 |

## Equations and models

*Most-mentioned equations and models, March 2025 (titles, abstracts and keywords)*

| # | Equation or model | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | [Scaled dot-product attention (Transformer)](https://scholar4ai.com/equations/scaled-dot-product-attention-transformer.md) | 125 |
| 2 | [Graph neural network (graph convolution)](https://scholar4ai.com/equations/graph-neural-network-graph-convolution.md) | 105 |
| 3 | [Convolutional neural network (CNN)](https://scholar4ai.com/equations/convolutional-neural-network-cnn.md) | 79 |
| 4 | [Linear and integer programming](https://scholar4ai.com/equations/linear-and-integer-programming.md) | 78 |
| 5 | [Contrastive loss (InfoNCE)](https://scholar4ai.com/equations/contrastive-loss-infonce.md) | 68 |
| 6 | [Long short-term memory (LSTM)](https://scholar4ai.com/equations/long-short-term-memory-lstm.md) | 47 |
| 7 | [Difference-in-differences](https://scholar4ai.com/equations/difference-in-differences.md) | 37 |
| 8 | [Mediation model (indirect effect)](https://scholar4ai.com/equations/mediation-model-indirect-effect.md) | 34 |
| 9 | [Total factor productivity (Solow residual)](https://scholar4ai.com/equations/total-factor-productivity-solow-residual.md) | 30 |
| 10 | [Gradient boosting (XGBoost)](https://scholar4ai.com/equations/gradient-boosting-xgboost.md) | 26 |

## Datasets

*Most-mentioned datasets, March 2025 (titles, abstracts and keywords)*

| # | Dataset | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | Economic Policy Uncertainty index | 25 |
| 2 | Twitter / X | 18 |
| 3 | S&P 500 | 17 |
| 4 | Climate Policy Uncertainty index | 10 |
| 5 | China Family Panel Studies (CFPS) | 8 |
| 6 | CIFAR-10 / CIFAR-100 | 8 |
| 7 | ImageNet | 6 |
| 8 | WTI crude oil | 6 |
| 9 | 10-K filings | 5 |
| 10 | CEC benchmark functions | 5 |

## Most-cited papers published in March 2025

*Most-cited papers published in March 2025 (citations counted by OpenAlex, updated daily)*

| # | Citations | Per month | Title | Journal | Published | Authors |
|---:|---:|---:|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 258 | 13.3 | [BERT applications in natural language processing: a review](https://doi.org/10.1007/s10462-025-11162-5) | [Artificial Intelligence Review](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/artificial-intelligence-review.md) | 2025-03-15 | Nadia Mushtaq Gardazi, Ali Daud, Muhammad Kamran Malik et al. |
| 2 | 171 | 8.8 | [A survey of small object detection based on deep learning in aerial images](https://doi.org/10.1007/s10462-025-11150-9) | [Artificial Intelligence Review](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/artificial-intelligence-review.md) | 2025-03-15 | Wei Hua, Qili Chen |
| 3 | 165 | 8.4 | [Job demands-resources and conservation of resources theories: How do they help to explain employee well-being and future job design?](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2025.115296) | [Journal of Business Research](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/journal-of-business-research.md) | 2025-03-10 | Evangelia Demerouti |
| 4 | 149 | 7.6 | [Digital transformation and supply chain resilience](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.iref.2025.104033) | [International Review of Economics & Finance](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/international-review-of-economics-finance.md) | 2025-03-07 | Pengcheng Li, Yanbing Chen, Xiaochuan Guo |
| 5 | 144 | 7.6 | [Purposeful sampling and saturation in qualitative research methodologies: recommendations and review](https://doi.org/10.1007/s11846-025-00881-2) | [Review of Managerial Science](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/review-of-managerial-science.md) | 2025-03-25 | Ricarda B. Bouncken, Wojciech Czakon, Florian Schmitt |
| 6 | 140 | 7.3 | [Resampling approaches to handle class imbalance: a review from a data perspective](https://doi.org/10.1186/s40537-025-01119-4) | [Journal Of Big Data](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/journal-of-big-data.md) | 2025-03-23 | Miguel Martins Carvalho, Armando J. Pinho, Susana Brás |
| 7 | 135 | 7.1 | [A comprehensive review on financial explainable AI](https://doi.org/10.1007/s10462-024-11077-7) | [Artificial Intelligence Review](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/artificial-intelligence-review.md) | 2025-03-29 | Wei Jie Yeo, Wihan van der Heever, Rui Mao et al. |
| 8 | 130 | 6.7 | [Embodied large language models enable robots to complete complex tasks in unpredictable environments](https://doi.org/10.1038/s42256-025-01005-x) | [Nature Machine Intelligence](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/nature-machine-intelligence.md) | 2025-03-18 | Ruaridh Mon-Williams, Gen Li, Ran Long et al. |
| 9 | 126 | 6.4 | [Dual selective fusion transformer network for hyperspectral image classification](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neunet.2025.107311) | [Neural Networks](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/neural-networks.md) | 2025-03-03 | Yichu Xu, Di Wang, Lefei Zhang et al. |
| 10 | 115 | 6.0 | [Artificial intelligence adoption dynamics and knowledge in SMEs and large firms: A systematic review and bibliometric analysis](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jik.2025.100682) | [Journal of Innovation & Knowledge](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/journal-of-innovation-knowledge.md) | 2025-03-22 | Samuel Godadaw Ayinaddis |

## Cite this page

Scholar4AI. (2026). Research published in March 2025. Journal Research Rankings. Retrieved October 26, 2026, from https://scholar4ai.com/reports/2025-03

```bibtex
@misc{scholar4ai-reports-2025-03,
  author = {{Scholar4AI}},
  title = {Research published in March 2025},
  year = {2026},
  howpublished = {\url{https://scholar4ai.com/reports/2025-03}},
  urldate = {2026-10-26},
  note = {Journal 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/).