M&A of Conventional and Islamic Banks: A Bibliometric Review

Mergers and Acquisitions (M&A) are a common phenomenon in the banking industry and an effective tool for horizontal expansion. Over the years, a substantial amount of academic research has been carried out around this topic, and it was highly thought-provoking to examine and analyze the patterns and outcomes of such published literature which lead to the objective of this study i.e. to examine the bibliometric data of peer-reviewed research work relating to M&A of conventional as well as Islamic banks and financial institutions available on the Scopus database and analyze the results with the help of VOSviewer and Biblioshiny software. The results of this bibliometric analysis conclude that that research work cramming M&A of banks and financial institutions has originated from around the globe with authors and institutions from USA taking significant lead. Further, most of the research work has been undertaken at business schools with emphasis on the resource-knowledge-based view and often with a learning focus instead of a more operational view point. It is also significant to note the most frequently cited work was mostly theoretical, i.e., it does not denote clear theory, thus providing space for more theory-based research in the future. As for the M&A of Islamic banks, there is significant lack of research titles but with the growth of Islamic banking and finance industry, especially in the Islamic countries, research work in this area is expected to increase significantly in the near future.