Bibliometric Analysis of the Product-Service System Research Field

The interest for the product-service system (PSS) approach has increased substantially in the last decade. New born research fields such as the PSS require the understanding of their knowledge structure as well as of their evolving structure of research collaborations. In this sense, the research field is better explained, supporting the alignment among new studies and an improved performance in the knowledge building. There are already papers in the literature that addressed the state-of-the-art in PSS, providing important guidance. However, they have not still focused on quantitative metrics, which are capable of providing a supplementary perspective. Therefore, this study aims at developing a bibliometric analysis of the PSS research field, looking for its current situation and possible evolution in terms of knowledge creation, collaboration networks and geographical distribution. A sample of 118 PSS papers published from 2002 to 2013 was collected in the Web of Science Database. Vantage Point, UCINET and NetDraw software was used to perform the bibliometric analysis. The results show a huge increase of the research field after 2011 and a balanced distribution of papers among authors. Europe and Asia are assigned to the majority of studies, showing strong collaboration networks among their institutions. Furthermore, journals with the highest number of PSS papers and the most cited papers are identified as well as the predominant knowledge topics addressed within the period. This study provides a holistic view of the PSS research field. It provides metrics regarding publications, which are useful for new entrants to identify the state-of-the-art and to understand their possible contributions to the research field. In addition, the investigation of collaboration networks shows the research groups in activity, highlighting opportunities for new collaborations and supporting the development of scientific policies. Finally, this study adopts quantitative metrics that can be reused for other studies in the future to update the status of the PSS research field or to perform similar analysis for other fields.