Scientometrics (2019) 120:929–960

https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-019-03165-1

Mapping the literature on credit unions: a bibliometric

investigation grounded in Scopus and Web of Science

Saulo Cardoso Maia1   · Gideon Carvalho de Benedicto1 · José Willer do Prado1 ·

David Alastair Robb2 · Oscar Neto de Almeida Bispo1 · Mozar José de Brito1

Received: 30 August 2018 / Published online: 5 July 2019

© Akadémiai Kiadó, Budapest, Hungary 2019

Abstract
Credit unions play a relevant role in providing microcredit and other financial services.
Because such financial cooperative organizations have drawn the attention of a significant
and growing academic literature, a bibliometric study becomes essential. This study com-
prehensively analyzes the literature on credit unions using the leading indices for biblio-
metric examination: Elsevier’s Scopus and Clarivate Analytics’ Web of Science databases.
Our searches reveal a high level of complementarity between the databases concerning the
subject. Their combined use has enabled us to extensively trace the evolution of studies
on the subject regarding volume and impact. We identify the major countries, journals,
authors, articles, intellectual basis and topics. Further, using CiteSpace, we have mapped
the networks of co-authorship, co-citations, and co-keywords in credit union research. The
findings allow us to conclude that economics and business finance are the principal areas
of credit union research although articles in sociology and history were also observed.
Finally, by investigating contemporary co-keywords clusters and future research directions,
we identify four main avenues of research: economic performance, corporate governance,
accounting and disclosure and, credit union to bank comparisons regarding customer rela-
tionships and technology.

Keywords  Credit union · Bibliometrics · Intellectual base · Research directions · Financial

inclusion

JEL codes  E51 · G23 · P13

* Saulo Cardoso Maia

saulocm@ufsj.edu.br
1
UFLA – Universidade Federal de Lavras, Programa de Pós-Graduação em Administração, Caixa
Postal 3037, Lavras, MG CEP 37200‑000, Brazil
2
UQ Business School, The University of Queensland, Room 313, Colin Clark Building, St. Lucia
Campus, Brisbane, Australia

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 930 Scientometrics (2019) 120:929–960

Introduction

Credit unions should be regarded as a significant sector of the world of finance because
they are globally known for being corporations owned by members who benefit substan-
tially. Economic benefit comes mainly from members’ obtaining better interest rates on
savings and loans than those provided by more conventional financial institutions (Taylor
1971; Walker and Chandler 1977; Smith 1984; Rubin et al. 2013). Of the many recipients,
such benefit applies to those who are excluded from conventional financial institutions. For
Jones (1999), there is a growing recognition by Government of the contribution made by
credit unions to providing financial services to those on low and moderate incomes. Credit
unions increasingly help create favorable politically and socially inclusive environments.
The World Council of Credit Union’s (WOCCU 2016) statistical report gathered data from
68,000 cooperatives serving around 235 million people in 109 countries on six continents.
The report presents USD 1.7 trillion of assets, USD 1.2 trillion of loans and USD 1.4 tril-
lion of savings and shares. The relevance and economic contributions of credit unions have
been corroborated and underlined in the literature (e.g., Desai et  al. 1996; Bauer 2008;
Rubin et al. 2013; Goenner 2016).
Credit unions emerged in the 19th century. The literature credits the “Rochdale Pio-
neers” with originating the modern cooperative movement. In 1844, they founded the
Rochdale Society of Equitable Pioneers in England (Banerjee et  al. 1994; Ryder 2009;
Walton 2015). Subsequently, in the 1850s, credit unions emerged in Germany led by Her-
mann Schulze-Delitzsch and Friedrich Raiffeisen (Banerjee et  al. 1994; Guinnane 1994;
Ghatak and Guinnane 1999; Dubauskas 2012). As the WOCCU (2016) reports, credit
unions have expanded greatly worldwide since their origin.
Many studies recognize the relevance of the sector for economics because they contrib-
ute significantly to financial systems and to society as a whole, by offering access to finance
and promoting specific sectors such as agriculture (Feinberg 2001; Frame et al. 2003; Ward
and McKillop 2005; Wang et  al. 2008; Goddard et  al. 2014). The growing understand-
ing of the interplay between poverty and financial exclusion reinforces that credit unions
are recognized as having large corporate organizational capacity to meaningfully contrib-
ute to people on low incomes (Jones 2008). The corporate form of credit unions has also
attracted considerable research interest. They are cooperative institutions founded on mutu-
ality among members aimed at credit unions being more inclusive in offering financial ser-
vices. Based on what that social form means to society and economics, to credit unions are
the subject of specific economic theories, for example, concerning value creation, corpo-
rate governance and relational implications (Smith et al. 1981; Spencer 1996; Byrne and
McCarthy 2014; Davis 2016).
Traditional theories of the firm also support credit union-focused studies about, for
example, size, cost, mergers, conflict among members, and the economic performance of
credit unions (Wolken and Navratil 1980; Goddard et al. 2008; Bauer et al. 2009; Joo et al.
2017). Other themes researched are: cost efficiencies and economies of scale, mergers and
acquisitions, benefits to distinct groups of members and the impact of regulation on perfor-
mance. Also studied is the social relevance of credit unions as credit providers (Banerjee
et  al. 1994; Drakeford and Gregory 2008; Amersdorffer et  al. 2015; Martinez-Campillo
and Fernandez-Santos 2017).
Despite the recognized social and economic relevance of credit unions and the exist-
ence of a growing and high-quality literature on them, the theme lacks a bibliometric
approach. It would help to map the state of the research and provide a better understanding

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Scientometrics (2019) 120:929–960 931

of the field. While McKillop and Wilson (2011) take a worthy empirical and theoretical
approach, it is not bibliometric. We searched for a bibliometric or systematic review on the
topic but failed. Based on no bibliometric review being available despite the relevance of
the topic, we decided to analyze the credit union literature using bibliometrics to inform
those engaged academically with the topic. As the leading research indexes, the Scopus
and Web of Science databases were used for this end. Following this introduction, the sec-
ond section explains the Research Methodology. Then the Results and Discussion section
reports the bibliometric analysis. Finally, we present the Conclusion, including the limita-
tions and possible directions for future research.

Research methodology

This is a bibliometric study that systematically analyzes the credit union literature using
articles indexed at Elsevier’s Scopus and Clarivate Analytics’ Web of Science (WoS) data-
bases. Bibliometric analysis is a robust instrument to assess scientific publications; it has
numerous applications in different scientific areas to aid research evaluation and scientific
policy (Bojović et al. 2014; Liu et al. 2014). By using network mapping and quantitative
techniques to analyze the credit union literature, we expect to contribute significantly to
identifying how it evolves and trends and thus provide a useful reference for researchers
from this field.
Although our research seeks to be thorough, it is not free from limitations; we thus
acknowledge the possibility of bias. For example, we risk the semantic problem associ-
ated with having to restrict polysemous terms, and language and databases’ biases (Moher
et  al. 2009; Aromataris and Pearson 2014; Taşkın and Al 2014). To help mitigate such
biases, we develop and use a systematic method based on Tranfield et  al. (2003), Prado
et al. (2016) and Costa et al. (2017), with adaptations for two database sources, networking
pattern analysis, and future research directions based on Chen and Wu (2017) and Filser
et al. (2017). Figure 1 illustrates the process.
This systematized method is comprised of five macro stages and their micro proce-
dures and has thus motivated this study. The procedures in stages 4 and 5 are intended
to facilitate a conception process by following paired sequences of analyses and report-
ing. For example, analysis procedures in item 5.1 follow the reporting described in item
4.1. Likewise, the procedures in item 5.2 follow those in item 4.2 and so on. This flow
helps to minimize errors because it is practical and allows feedback. The following subsec-
tions describe each stage. This approach could apply to other bibliometric research, with or
without adaptations, depending on their scope, methods used, and whether the databases
are unique or multiple.

Stage 1: plan

First, we verified the relevance of the topic (procedures 1.1). A preliminary literature
review found the importance of credit unions to many countries’ financial systems by
providing cheaper credit in low-income areas and those not served by banks (Feinberg
2001; Dunford 2009; Goenner 2016; Bressan et al. 2017). We have done a preliminary
search in Google Scholar using the terms “credit union*” [the character “*” expanded
the search to include terms in the plural or any other variations], “credit cooperative*”
and “financial cooperative*” and found many documents. Further, the literature (Bauer

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 932 Scientometrics (2019) 120:929–960

Fig. 1  Summary of the systematized process to perform bibliometric analysis. Source: adapted from Prado
et al. (2016) and Costa et al. (2017)

2008; Rubin et  al. 2013) indicates the need for more studies on credit unions, mainly
regarding their economic relevance.
Having identified the relevance of the topic, before continuing, we verified the lack
of bibliometric studies on credit unions by looking for a similar proposal (procedure
1.2). As reported in the Introduction, we were unable to find any bibliometric review
of the topic. Searches in Scopus and WoS using the terms listed in the preceding para-
graph, but also “bibliometric*”, “scientometric*”, “systematic*” and “review” did not
return any records. The searches were done using all fields without restricting the areas
or types of document. Therefore, we delimit the scope of this study as being a compre-
hensive bibliographic analysis of credit unions’ literature, without restrictions of time,
place, or scientific area (procedure 1.3).
In addition to mathematical and statistical procedures, using relational networks pro-
vided a valuable tool to help answer wide-ranging questions about collaboration patterns
in bibliometric studies (Newman 2004; Mingers and Leydesdorff 2015). We applied Cit-
eSpace to visualize bibliographic records, relationships, and networks. Although much
bibliometric research has used CiteSpace (Chen 2006), to the best of our knowledge,
no research has used it to analyze credit unions’ literature. CiteSpace helps to map the
intellectual collaboration network, co-citation references, the co-occurring keywords,
timeline clusters, and landmark articles (Chen and Wu 2017).
Regarding procedure 1.4, Scopus and WoS are the most recommended indexes, by
which to perform multidisciplinary and international bibliometric analyses of journal
articles (Gavel and Iselid 2008; Mongeon and Paul-Hus 2016). While Scopus is the larg-
est bibliometric database and WoS offers the most wide-ranging coverage of science,
both contain essential metadata to realize bibliometric analyses (Mongeon and Paul-Hus
2016; Filser et  al. 2017). Therefore, Scopus and WoS are appropriate sources for this
research.

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Stage 2: search

The searches of Scopus and Web of Science Core Collection were performed in March
2018 using the terms “credit union*”, “credit cooperative*” and “financial coopera-
tive*” in the papers’ title (procedures 2.1 and 2.2). Preliminary analysis of articles
using only the main search term “credit union*” allowed us to identify varying names
used for the same organizations. To search for exact terms, those search terms were
enclosed in quotation marks. The Boolean operator “OR” combined results from all
terms.
Concerning field tags, the searches were done in the title to standardize results from
the databases. Filser et  al. (2017) note that it is not suitable to use the same param-
eters if searching in “Article title, Abstract, and Keywords” in Scopus and “Topic”
in WoS. Apart from standardization, scope was also considered to restrict the search
terms to the title. For example, when using a less restrictive search using “Article title,
Abstract and Keywords” (Scopus) and “Topic” (WoS), many articles in which credit
unions were not the object of research were returned. Searching in the title restricted
the number of articles that did not focus on credit unions.
After defining terms, field tags and Boolean operators, we established filters.
Regarding the type of documents, the searches in both databases were restricted to
articles. No restrictions on language and scientific fields were imposed. Having per-
formed the searches, we proceeded to select and store eligible articles. First, we briefly
read the articles’ abstracts and analyzed them for polysemy to exclude articles beyond
the scope of this study. We then saved all eligible articles to marked lists in both data-
bases. This procedure was essential to record, store, download, and manage the rel-
evant articles.

Stage 3: data organization

During this stage, the records and their respective metadata were downloaded and
imported into the applications used for analyses (procedures 3.1 and 3.2), that is, Stata-
Corp’s Stata/IC 15.0, Thomson Reuters’s EndNote X7, Googles’ Google Earth Pro,
Esri’s ArcGIS, Microsoft Excel 2016, and CiteSpace 5.2.R1. Data from both databases
were imported into CiteSpace. Importing Scopus’ data required converting ris-file to
a text-file format using the software’s import features, while WoS’s data was imported
directly into CiteSpace from text-files.
Having imported the data, procedures 3.3 and 3.4 were undertaken. Using two differ-
ent databases implies duplicate records and thus requires further procedures to process
the data in CiteSpace. For example, to merge variants for the same entity or different
abbreviation formats of the same author’s surname, we used the function “Alias” (Chen
2015). This procedure is especially useful because data within the same database and
between the two different databases differed in entities’ identifiers before correction.
For example, “McKillop D” and “McKillop DG” were merged into a single entity, like
the United States and the USA, and other entities with different identifiers. Rather than
using graphic interactions in the application, we did the modifications directly in the
file, “citespace.alias”, which allowed us to identify and correct all duplicate values in
the databases. Using the function, Alias, considerably improved how the nodes and their
networks were represented.

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 934 Scientometrics (2019) 120:929–960

Stage 4: analysis

The analysis was conducted using CiteSpace, EndNote, Google Earth Pro, ArcGIS,
Microsoft Excel and Stata Statistical Software. The Stata statistical package was used
to plot a proportional Venn Diagram to represent accurately both the number of arti-
cles found in Scopus and Web of Science databases and any articles overlapping both
databases. For this purpose, the module pvenn (Gong and Ostermann 2011) supported
the proportional chart creation. EndNote X7 was used to manage references and to for-
mat style. Google Earth Pro and ArcGIS were used to analyze worldwide credit union
research and create a relevant map. Microsoft Excel was used extensively to tabulate and
analyze text-files with metadata from both indexes and to support generation of tables
and charts. For this purpose, we used its PivotTables function to arrange and summarize
the tabulated merged data. We present several tables and charts describing the analyses
of various dimensions, namely, countries, journals, authors, and articles. Each analysis
ranks the leading elements in the field classified by citation counts. One exception is the
rank of authors, which is classified by h-index (Hirsch 2005) as explained below.
The subsection, “Authors”, addresses researchers with the largest numbers of highly
cited articles in the credit union literature. Authors were ranked by their h-index based
on articles within the database searches. The h-index describes the h number of arti-
cles with citation number ≥ h (Hirsch 2005). H-index is an indicator characterizing the
productivity and impact of individuals’ research work and is widely used by the biblio-
metric research community (Van Raan 2006; Bornmann et al. 2008). Rather than cita-
tion counts, the h-index better reflects the leading researchers in the field in that some
authors may have a substantial number of citations, but with only a few publications
about credit unions. For example, while Barron, D. N. is the principal author of the
most-cited article in the search, the author has not worked on any other article included
within the scope of this research. Consequently, Barron will not appear in the list of
principal authors because others’ articles suiting this study have more significant h-indi-
ces. Nevertheless, Barron et al. (1994) will appear in the list of most cited articles. As a
result, classifying articles by citation count, and classifying authors by h-index provides
two useful, complementary views.
In addition to the quantitative analyses, networking visualizations were done using
CiteSpace. This software allowed us to identify networks, tendencies, countries, clus-
ters and collaborations among authors, as well as co-citations in references and jour-
nals (Chen 2006). All analyses in CiteSpace were restricted to between 1970 and 2017
because credit union research prior to 1970 is sparse, as our initial analyses using
spreadsheets have showed we have defined 2017 as the final year.
Because the size of a visualized network in CiteSpace influences its clarity and
complexity (Chen, 2015), researchers are unlikely to know which configuration gen-
erates the most suitable visualization. The final configuration of each network gener-
ated through CiteSpace was chosen after multiple attempts to achieve the best balance
between legibility and detail for a visualization. The detailed parameters are noted in the
results of each network. CiteSpace also enables mapping of the publication field, and its
networks of authors, references, and keywords.
Finally, we created a map for future research divided into lines of research and their
respective topics. The map is inspired by Filser et al. (2017) and is based on the propos-
als for future research provided in the most recently published credit union research. To
create the map, the latest published articles were selected, specifically those published

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in 2017. Following Filser et al. (2017), we have limited the analysis to the last selected
year as the suggestions for future research continue.

Stage 5: report

The previous sections described a variety of stages and procedures we used to perform the
bibliometric analysis. This stage presents the tables, figures and text representing the find-
ings of the analysis. Every procedure in stage 4 resulted in a substantial corpus and clearly
organized our results and discussion into nine subsections as follows: “Databases”, “Out-
put overview”, “Countries”, “Journals”, “Authors”, “Articles”, “Intellectual base”, “Top-
ics” and “Future research directions”. As far as practicable, the subsections were displayed
from macro to micro levels to clarify the mapping of the literature. Readers will note each
subsection contains figures and tables illustrating and guiding the analysis.

Results and discussion

Databases

The proportional Venn diagram in Fig.  2 shows both the number of articles focusing on
credit unions in Scopus and Web of Science databases, and the number of overlapping arti-
cles. The number of articles in Scopus (n = 380) is greater than in Web of Science (n = 272).
The search returned a total of 485 articles after discounting the 167 that overlapped. While
there may be considerable intersection, many articles present in only one of the two data-
bases, 213 unique to Scopus and 105 unique to WoS. When compared with research using
both databases, our literature review of the topic using just one database would thus reduce
the research parameter by 43.9% if the research does not use Scopus and about 21.6% if we
do not use WoS. Further, up to 2017, these articles had received 3291 citations from 2063
documents in Scopus and 2250 citations by 1573 documents in WoS, thus underlining the
scale of the credit union literature.
Details of the data reveal that using both Scopus and WoS in any review of credit union
literature is recommended because of the difference in indexed journals. There are rele-
vant journals included in just one of the two databases or only partially included in one of
them. For example, the American Journal of Sociology (ISSN 0002-9602), which appears

Fig. 2  Articles focusing on credit

unions in Scopus and Web of Sci-
ence databases

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 936 Scientometrics (2019) 120:929–960

in second place in the list of most cited journals in our search, is not included in Sco-
pus. Another example is the Annals of Public and Cooperative Economics (ISSN 1370-
4788), the journal with most articles in the search; its articles are found in WoS from 2015
onwards although it started to publish in 1908. Only Scopus includes its pre-2015 articles.
This anomaly reinforces the relevance of searching in both databases because they comple-
ment each other. A search in just one database would have excluded relevant journals and
consequently many important articles and authors. This information is notably valid for
any future research into the field.

Output overview

While we found journal articles on credit unions dating from 1936, the literature is more
consistent from the 1970s. The oldest article found in the search was Johnson (1936), pub-
lished in the American Journal of Agricultural Economics (ISSN 0002-9092). However,
the literature before 1970 is both sparse and attracted little attention. We located only 30
articles from 1936 to 1970, or fewer than one article by year. Additionally, those articles
have not been cited. The oldest article with a non-negligible number of citations is “The
credit union as a cooperative institution” by Taylor (1971), published in the Review of
Social Economy, having received 40 citations by articles included in Scopus and similarly
25 in WoS. This article may thus be considered the pioneering precursor of credit union
research, given that older articles have no relevant citations. Taylor’s article presents an
economic theory of the credit union, highlighting the peculiarity of the institution in that
it combines financial mediation with cooperative organization, and presents the economic
implications of that institutional form. The study has been cited by other important articles
in the literature of credit union economics (e.g., Smith et al. 1981; Smith 1984; Goddard
et al. 2002; McKillop et al. 2002).
Currently, the literature on credit unions relating to citations and published articles
has grown significantly over the past 10 years (see Fig. 3). In 2017, 32 published articles
occupied the databases, four times more than 2007. From 2015 to 2017, 89 articles have
been published, 39 more than the 50 published from 2012 to 2014, or an increase of 78%.

40 350

300

30
250
Citations

200
Articles

20
150

100
10
50

0 0
1974

1978

1984

1988
1990

1994

1998
2000

2004

2008
2010

2014
1970
1972

1976

1980
1982

1986

1992

1996

2002

2006

2012

2016

Years
papers unique to Scopus overlapping papers papers unique to WoS
citations in Scopus citations in WoS

Fig. 3  Evolution of the literature on credit unions based on Scopus and Web of Science data (1970 to 2017)

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Scientometrics (2019) 120:929–960 937

Citation counts have seen a similar evolution and increase. In 2017, 302 citations appeared
in Scopus and 173 in WoS, compared with 98 and 68 citations in the respective databases
in 2007. From 2015 to 2017, 771 citations appeared in Scopus and 513 in WoS, compared
with 664 and 399 citations in the respective databases from 2012 to 2014. Figure 3 pre-
sents the long-term article and citation counts, seemingly indicating increasing interest in
the field over the coming years.

Countries

Since Scopus and WoS embrace different journals and thus different articles, we performed
two distinct analyses about the origin of studies when gathering articles and citations by
country. Although it required additional analysis, distinguishing the databases enabled us
to explore their differences and provide two complementary views on the origin of the lit-
erature. Aside from journals, articles, and citations, another difference between databases
is that Scopus aggregates countries of the UK while WoS does not. To provide more com-
parable statistics, we aggregated data of UK countries in both databases.
Based on Scopus and WoS data, Fig.  4 presents locations of authors who published
credit union related articles from 1970 to 2017. The links denote collaboration between
authors. The figure indicates substantial research concentration in the USA and Europe,
particularly the UK. Those regions also present the most significant number of co-occur-
rence links. As the map reveals, other regions also collaborate, albeit on a smaller scale
(e.g., Africa-USA, Brazil-Europe, China–Europe, China-USA). In addition, Fig. 4 shows
several independent research centres that could be more interactive. For instance, many
Latin American countries show as unlinked points despite their common language.
Figure 4 also indicates that more developed and populous areas in several large coun-
tries are active hubs of credit union research (e.g., southern and eastern regions in Aus-
tralia, Brazil, and the USA). Further investigation is necessary to determine if these hubs
cause or result from economic development or, perhaps, reflect a culture of support for
credit unions. Recall, that the modern cooperative movement was started by the Rochdale
Pioneers in England (Banerjee et al. 1994; Ryder 2009; Walton 2015).

Fig. 4  Locations of authors who published articles on credit unions indexed on Scopus and Web of Sciences
(1970–2017)

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Quantitative analysis of articles and citations complements the heatmap view of authors’
locations. Table 1 presents countries with more citations based on Scopus on the left, with
WoS on the right. Both sides are classified by citation counts. To give a sense of the vol-
ume of articles produced, Table 1 also shows the number of articles. The searches returned
articles from 48 countries, the result of which reveals a discrepancy between the numbers
of countries where research on credit unions is undertaken and the number of countries
where credit unions operate. Although WOCCU (2016) reports credit unions operating in
109 countries, researchers in more countries could fruitfully extend credit union research.
This analysis seems to align with the increasing credit union literature and thus may indi-
cate that credit union related research, more generally, needs to increase. Further, allocat-
ing resources more widely could meet this need in more regions.
The rankings of the 10 most cited countries in credit union literature are similar in Sco-
pus and WoS, but not identical. In both databases, the USA and the UK have the two high-
est number of citations. While Australia ranks third in Scopus, either by citations or arti-
cles, it ranks sixth in WoS regarding citations, with Canada ranking third. Belgium and
Italy rank alternately fourth and fifth in the databases. After sixth place, the ranks are less
similar. Nevertheless, Ireland and Taiwan lie within both top-10 lists. Japan and New Zea-
land appear among the most cited countries only in Scopus, while Switzerland and Spain
are ranked top-10 by WoS. Despite some difference in ranking, the first seven countries
concerning citation counts are the same regardless of databases: the USA, the UK, Aus-
tralia, Canada, Belgium, Italy, and Ireland.
Unsurprisingly, there is a relationship between the top-ranked countries in the searches
and those where the credit union industry is well-developed, but with some exceptions.
Considering citations and number of articles in both databases, the leading countries in
the topic are the USA, the UK, Australia and Canada. The countries where the literature
is more prevalent coincides partially with the group of countries where credit unions are
‘mature’: the USA, Canada, Australia, France, and Korea (McKillop and Wilson 2011;
Ferguson and McKillop 2000).
Note that the UK is not in the list of countries where credit unions are classified as
‘mature’ (McKillop and Wilson 2011), although it ranks second in the literature. Consid-
ering that the origin of the cooperative movement is attributed to the Rochdale Society

Table 1  The 10 most cited countries in the literature on credit unions based on Scopus and Web of Science 
Scopus Web of Science
# Country Articles Citations # Country Articles Citations

1 United States 118 1643 1 United States 114 1533

2 United Kingdom 67 939 2 United Kingdom 35 535
3 Australia 28 257 3 Canada 16 440
4 Belgium 5 150 4 Italy 4 117
5 Italy 6 145 5 Belgium 4 116
6 Ireland 13 131 6 Australia 11 92
7 Canada 20 92 7 Ireland 2 14
8 Japan 4 44 8 Taiwan 4 13
9 Taiwan 6 37 9 Switzerland 2 11
10 New Zealand 3 36 10 Spain 8 9

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of Equitable Pioneers in 1844 (Banerjee et  al. 1994; Guinnane 1994; Dubauskas 2012),
this seems unusual. Modern credit unions have evolved and developed in other countries
since the Rochdale Pioneers. However, Ryder (2009) observes that credit unions have been
less impactful in the UK because of inadequate legislation, ineffective credit union regula-
tions, misplaced development, over-reliance on state subsidies, and the movement being
disunited.
To determine whether credit union related publications accord with different coun-
tries’ research publications in general (that is, countries with the highest output should,
ceteris paribus, also have the highest credit union research publication output), we com-
pared the data to Country Rankings (Scimago Lab 2016). For this, we used the Scopus
search because the databases are compatible. We chose economics, econometrics and
finance research as appropriate after considering the main journals related to credit union
research publications. While the USA and UK are the two countries that publish the most
economics, econometrics and finance research, their participation in credit unions litera-
ture remains higher than other countries. The USA’s and UK’s share of articles from those
subject areas are 29% and 9%, respectively, while their credit union related publications
are 31% and 18%. In general, Australia and Canada also rank higher in credit union related
research than they do in economics, econometrics and finance. Australia and Canada are
ranked three and four, respectively, relative to the number of credit union research pub-
lications, compared with rankings five and six in the economic, econometric and finance
research.

Journals

Table 2 presents the 10 most cited journals in the literature on credit unions. When a jour-
nal is included in both Scopus and WoS, the database with more citations is used to rank it.
Citation counts of both databases were not summed as some citations may overlap. Choos-
ing one of the databases over the other to rank the journals would also be problematic if
there were journals with citations in just one database. The 485 articles in this search were

Table 2  Most cited journals in the literature on credit unions

# Journal (ISSN) JCR 2016 SJR 2016 Articles Citations
Scopus WoS

1 Journal of Banking & Finance (0378–4266) 1.776 1.767 18 625 490

2 American Journal of Sociology (0002–9602) 3.088 4.101 1 – 289
3 European Journal of Operational Research (0377– 3.297 2.505 2 282 244
2217)
4 The Journal of Finance (0022–1082) 6.093 20.97 12 221 244
5 Annals of Public and Cooperative Economics – 0.424 28 182 1
(1370–4788)
6 The quarterly Journal of Economics (0033–5533) 6.662 24.76 1 179 137
7 Applied Economics (0003–6846) 0.648 0.464 10 107 71
8 Review of Social Economy (0034–6764) – 0.445 7 95 54
9 Journal of Economic History (0022-0507) 1.101 1.373 2 89 54
10 IMA Journal of Management Mathematics (1471– 1.488 0.857 2 85 –
678X)

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published in 275 different journals. The top 10 journals represent 62% of the 5541 citations
in both databases. In five of the 10 most cited journals, their high ranking is due to substan-
tial citations of one or two articles. There are also four journals with 10 or more articles.
Table 2 shows the number of articles and the JCR and SJR indicators of each journal and
that credit union research has been published in highly ranked journals with high-impact
factors.
The most cited journal of the study is the Journal of Banking & Finance, which focuses
on theoretical and empirical research articles concerning financial institutions and the
money and capital markets within which they function. The 18 articles in that journal have
received 625 citations in Scopus and 490 citations in WoS, corresponding to 20.2% of the
citations counted in the search. The second journal is the American Journal of Sociology
with 289 citations of just one article, and the third is the European Journal of Operational
Research, which had two articles receiving 282 citations in Scopus and 244 in WoS. The
journal listed fourth by number of citations is The Journal of Finance (JoF), a high-impact
factor journal (ranked first in the 2018 Journal Impact Factor, Journal Citation Reports
(Clarivate Analytics 2018) in the Business Finance field. Twelve articles from JoF in the
search receives 221 citations in Scopus and 224 citations in WoS. These results help cor-
roborate that credit union research has attracted worthwhile attention from the academic
community.
The Annals of Public and Cooperative Economics also publishes credit union related
research. It features theoretical, empirical and experimental developments in public, coop-
erative, or non-profit economics. Although it is the fifth journal for citations, it contains the
highest number of articles: our search located 28 documents. While the WoS accesses only
post-2014 articles (though founded in 1908), pre-2015 articles can be located in Scopus.
The Quarterly Journal of Economics (QJoE) is the sixth journal by number of citations,
though our searching located only one article. QJoE also received a very high ranking in
the 2018 Journal Impact Factor, Journal Citation Reports (Clarivate Analytics 2018) in
economics. This high ranking would suggest that credit union related research is highly
relevant to the business, finance and economics disciplines.

Authors

The searches reveal that 154 authors participated in 380 articles in the Scopus database
and 608 authors participated in 272 articles in WoS. Table 3 presents both the 10 authors
with the highest h-index, their respective organizations and countries, and the number of
articles and citation counts for each author. There are two rows for each author. The first
refers to the indicators of individual output of credit union literature, the second to the
total production of the respective authors in the database. Table 3 also presents the share
of credit union articles and citations as a proportion of each authors’ total research out-
put. The charts indicate the extent to which each author focuses on credit union research.
Authors are ordered by h-index in accordance with our Research Methodology.
While Scopus and WoS differ, four authors are ranked in the top 10 places in both data-
bases: McKillop, Wilson, Goddard, and Ward. In each, McKillop, and Wilson are respec-
tively the first and second authors and outrank other authors by h-index, number of arti-
cles, and citations concerning articles about credit unions. Goddard is ranked 3rd in Scopus
and 8th in WoS. His general h-index is 25, arising from 1933 citations and 67 articles. He
ranked highest in our searches of the Scopus database by total output (see Table 3). How-
ever, his credit union articles correspond to only 12% of his total research output, unlike

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Table 3  Analysis of the main authors in the literature on credit unions based on Scopus and Web of Science 
Articles Citations h-index Share of articles Share of citations
# Author Organization country Credit unions Credit unions Credit unions Credit unions Credit unions
(total) (total) (total) other topics other topics
Scopus
Queen's University Belfast, 32 408 13
1 McKillop, D. G.
Nothern Ireland (79) (845) (16)

Wilson, University of St Andrews, 14 250 8

2
J. O. S. Scotland (48) (1475) (21)

Goddard, Bangor Business School, 8 125 5

3
J. A. Wales (67) (1933) (25)

University of B. Darussalam, 7 91 5
4 Ferguson, C.
Brunei (9) (92) (5)

Ward, Ulster University, 8 77 5

5
A. M. Nothern Ireland (9) (83) (5)

University of Virginia, 5 357 4

6 Overstreet, G. A.
United States (15) (436) (7)

Karels, University of Nebraska, 4 70 4

7
G. V. United States (28) (444) (11)

Allred, Weber State University, 4 49 4

8
A. T. United States (13) (82) (5)

Davis, University of Melbourne, 5 47 4

9
K. Australia (36) (123) (7)

Glass, Ulster University, 4 65 3

10
J. C. Nothern Ireland (24) (438) (12)
Web of Science
Queen's University Belfast, 15 197 9
1 McKillop, D. G.
Nothern Ireland (38) (409) (10)

Wilson, University of St Andrews, 8 140 6

2
J. O. S. Scotland (26) (579) (11)

Taylor, Northern Illinois University, 6 59 4

3
R. A. United States (14) (101) (5)

Navratil, John Carroll University, 5 45 4

4
F. J. United States (10) (96) (6)

Feinberg, Penn State University, 4 47 4

5
R. M. United States (13) (139) (6)

Guinnane, Yale University, 4 262 4

6
T. W. United States (31) (897) (13)

Smith, Boston University, 4 101 4

7
D. J. United States (36) (561) (15)

Goddard, Bangor Business School, 4 72 3

8
J. A. Wales (28) (463) (11)

Ward, Ulster University, 4 28 3

9
A. M. Nothern Ireland (4) (28) (3)

Wolken, Federal Reserve System, 4 37 3

10
J. D. United States (17) (358) (8)

McKillop and Wilson, whose share of articles and citations on credit unions are both more
significant. Closing the list of authors who are in both top 10 ranks is Ward, ranked 5 in
Scopus and 9 in WoS. Ward’s research output focuses on credit unions (see Table 3).
Collaboration among most of the leading authors helps to explain their research output.
Data from both Scopus and WoS reveal that six of the authors ranked in the top 10 are geo-
graphically close and collaborate, namely, McKillop, Wilson, Goddard, Ward, Glass and
Ferguson. Table  3 shows them to be affiliated with UK universities, mostly in Northern
Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. One researcher from the same UK network is Ferguson C, an
exception in that he is affiliated with the University of Brunei, Darussalam. That specific
network can be seen in Fig. 5, generated through CiteSpace using data from Scopus and
WoS, as detailed in Research Methodology.
Figure 5 reveals the networks of authors engaged in research on credit unions and their
respective co-authorship links. The following parameters in CiteSpace have been used: (1)

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 942 Scientometrics (2019) 120:929–960

Fig. 5  Authors collaboration in credit unions research

10  years per interval; (2) term source = title/abstract/author/keywords/keywords plus; (3)

node type = author; (4) pruning = none; (5) method Top N% = 100% of most cited items
from each interval up to 500. The image on the left is composed of all author networks
found in the searches, while the image on the right depicts the major author networks iden-
tified in this study. Each node represents an author linked to other authors collaborating on
articles. The thickness of links indicates the strength of collaboration. The interval length
is 10 years, and the tone of links and nodes indicates the decade of publishing. The darker
the tone of the nodes and links, the more recent the articles. Node sizes are directly pro-
portional to the number of citations that authors have received. Label sizes are constant
and the threshold is four (i.e., only authors with, at least, four articles appear in labels). We
established this threshold to show the names of all authors in Table 3 who are part of the
major network.
Figure 5 indicates that many small networks of up to four authors have produced most
articles on credit unions. One exception is the highlighted network. The central and more
complex network comprises 13 authors with a significant total output, suggesting that
collaboration benefits both the authors and research, and that research groups are central
to research effort (Newman 2001; Wagner and Leydesdorff 2005; Reyes-Gonzalez et  al.
2016). In the core of the network is McKillop, who is directly linked to nine other members
and ranked 1st in h-index, citations, and number of articles, thus suggesting that strong
leadership positively influences research group success (Harvey et  al. 2002; Hemlin and
Olsson 2011; Olsson et al. 2012). The central network includes Wilson, Goddard, Fergu-
son, Ward, and Glass, who are also ranked within the 10 authors with highest research
outputs.
The links and their tone presented in Fig. 5 indicate that most networks in credit union
research are small and recent. The central and more complex network published most of
its articles in the 2000s, notably those who collaborated with the central member, McKil-
lop. There are also articles published in 2010s, mainly with the participation of Ward and
Glass. The other networks are smaller and generally more recent than the central network

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Scientometrics (2019) 120:929–960 943

with many of them having two, three, or four members publishing articles after 2010.
This appears to align with the growth in credit union research motivated by new networks
speeding up research output in more recent years (recall Fig. 3). Like the central network,
the newer networks may develop further by including more authors. Based on the impact
of research groups and leadership on output (Newman 2001; Hemlin and Olsson 2011),
the progress and consolidation of new networks will likely benefit credit union research by
further increasing the number of articles and citations.

Articles

From our searches in Scopus and WoS, Table 4 presents the 10 most cited articles ranked
according to the count of their citations in those databases. Table  4 presents the titles,
authors, journals, and citations, as well as charts (scaled identically) showing the evolu-
tion of citations of each article over the previous 10 years. Economics or business finance
journals have published most of the articles listed, confirming their role in presenting credit
union literature. With the exceptions of Goddard et al. (2008), Guinnane (2001) and Mur-
ray and White (1983), all other most cited articles were published in the 1990s.
Table  4’s rankings align with and support the most cited journals and most frequent
countries where the authors’ articles originate, as described in previous subsections.
Among the 10 most cited articles, there are seven (Fried et al. 1993; Banerjee et al. 1994;
Barron et al. 1994; Guinnane 1994, 2001; Desai et al. 1996, 1997) with co-authors from
the USA, three (Desai et  al. 1996, 1997; Goddard et  al. 2008) with co-authors from the
UK, two (Murray and White 1983; Barron et al. 1994) with co-authors from Canada, one
(Fried et al. 1993) with a co-author from Belgium, and one (Angelini et al. 1998) authored
by Italian researchers. Moreover, nine of the 10 most cited articles were published in seven
of the 10 most cited journals, with three of them (Fried et al. 1993; Angelini et al. 1998;
Goddard et al. 2008) being published in the Journal of Banking and Finance.
Table  4’s charts indicate that the citation counts in Scopus and WoS are different but
correlate. Aligning with Fig.  3, Scopus citations are higher than WoS citations for every
year of each article listed in Table  4. Scopus’ higher number of articles compared with
WoS is due to Elsevier’s database’s indexing a greater number of journals (Gavel and Iselid
2008; Mongeon and Paul-Hus 2016). While Fig. 3 indicates a growing trend in total cita-
tions of both databases, the charts in Table 4 show little evidence of the most cited articles’
citation counts increasing or decreasing. Therefore, the recent growth in total citations of
credit union literature likely results from organic growth, that is, an increasing number of
new cited articles, rather than increasing average citations per article.

Intellectual base

This subsection presents the intellectual base of the most cited references on credit union
research (Persson 1994; Chen 2006; Hammarfelt 2011) and includes not just articles, but
any other kind of reference (e.g., books). Figure  6 presents the CiteSpace-generated net-
works of cited references and their respective co-citations links (Boyack and Klavans 2010;
Chen et al. 2010).
To generate the networks in Fig.  6, we used the following parameters in CiteSpace:
(1) 10  years per interval from 1970 to 2017; (2) term source = title/abstract/author/key-
words/keywords plus; (3) node type = cited reference; (4) pruning = none; (5) selection
of 3% most cited articles per interval up to 200; (6) look back years = unlimited; and (7)

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Table 4  Most cited articles in the literature on credit unions based on Scopus and Web of Science
# Title Author(s) Journals Citations Citations per year

13
Scopus WoS Scopus WoS

1 A time to grow and a time to die: growth and mortality of Barron et al. (1994) American Journal of Sociology - 289
30
20
credit unions in New York City, 1914–1990
10
0

30
20
2 A comparison of neural networks and linear scoring mod- Desai et al. (1996) European Journal of Operational Research 254 223
10
els in the credit union environment 0

30
20
3 Thy neighbor’s keeper: The design of a credit cooperative Banerjee et al. (1994) Quarterly Journal of Economics 179 137
10
with theory and a test 0

30
20
4 Availability and cost of credit for small businesses: cus- Angelini et al. (1998) Journal of Banking and Finance 140 115
10
tomer relationships and credit cooperatives 0

30
20
5 Evaluating the performance of United States credit unions Fried et al. (1993) Journal of Banking and Finance 139 108
10
0

30
20
6 Economies of scale and economies of scope in multiprod- Murray and White (1983) Journal of Finance 128 98
10
uct financial institutions: a study of British-Columbia 0

credit unions
30
20
7 Cooperatives as information machines: German rural Guinnane (2001) Journal of Economic History 86 53
10
credit cooperatives, 1883–1914 0

30
20
8 Credit-scoring models in the credit-union environment Desai et al. (1997) IMA Journal of Management Mathematics 83 –
10
using neural networks and genetic algorithms 0

30
20
9 A failed institutional transplant: Raiffeisen credit coopera- Guinnane (1994) Explorations in Economic History 79 55
10
tives in Ireland, 1894–1914 0

30
20
10 The diversification and financial performance of US credit Goddard et al. (2008) Journal of Banking and Finance 73 56
10
unions 0
Scientometrics (2019) 120:929–960
Scientometrics (2019) 120:929–960 945

Fig. 6  The most cited references in credit union literature

link retaining factor = 2. The link-retaining factor equalling 2 confines the number of links
to simplify and aid readability of the network map. In the interests of such legibility, the
threshold of labeling is 20, which has limited the map to the 16 most cited references. Cita-
tion frequency determines the sizes of labels and nodes. The bigger the node and label, the
more cited is the reference. The tone of links indicates the first time that two references
were co-cited. The tone of nodes indicates the decades when references have been cited. As
shown in Table 5, we found 679 nodes, of which 456 are included in the last category from
2010 to 2017.
There are 13,015 links between references of which 1406 are displayed in Fig. 6. Using
the CiteSpace’s function “Link retaining factor” reduces the number of links to generate a
workable visualization. Following the number of nodes, most of the links − 10,682 are in
the last category (that is, 2010 to 2017). This high number of nodes and links in the last
category helps reinforce the evidence of a recent strong evolution of credit union literature.
In line with Table 5, Fig. 6 illustrates the high number of nodes and links after 2010 (dark-
est tone).

Table 5  Cited references network Intervals Nodes Exposed links Total links

1970–1979 24 48 80
1980–1989 24 48 213
1990–1999 91 182 445
2000–2009 108 216 1595
2010–2017 456 912 10,682
Total 679 1406 13,015

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 946 Scientometrics (2019) 120:929–960

While many references are relatively recent, much of the central knowledge base was
published prior to 2000. The most cited references and respective citation counts in the
search are: Taylor (1971) (48 citations), Smith (1984) (43 citations), Smith et  al. (1981)
(39 citations), Fried et al. (1993) (39 citations), Fried et al. (1999) (34 citations), Ferguson
and McKillop (1997) (29 citations), Goddard et al. (2008) (29 citations), Smith (1986) (27
citations), Berger and Humphrey (1997) (26 citations), Ralston et al. (2001) (25 citations),
Banker et al. (1984) (23 citations), (23 citations), Charnes et al. (1978) (22 citations), Flan-
nery (1974) (20 citations), Barron et  al. (1994) (20 citations), and Jensen and Meckling
(1976) (20 citations).
Figure  6 reveals some relevant observations that the five most cited references are all
connected by co-citation links. That arrangement denotes that those studies comprise the
central research base for the credit union literature, focusing primarily on specific eco-
nomic theories and econometric empirical tests. Taylor (1971) provided the foundational
economic theory specific to credit unions and, while other studies focus similarly, the num-
ber of citations that Taylor’s study has received likely indicates its greater relevance. After
Taylor’s work, Smith et al. (1981) varied credit unions’ objectives to measure the net gains
to members by comparing with market rates on loans and savings. With the intention to
maximize pecuniary benefits to members, Smith endorses that credit unions should decide
about their loans and savings interest rates to maximize those benefits. Following that
approach, Smith (1984) later developed a framework and an optimization problem analysis
to aid such benefit extension.
The next two highly cited references are empirical investigations of US credit unions.
Fried et al. (1993) assessed the performance of two-thirds of all US credit unions operat-
ing in 1990. The authors used nonparametric, nonstochastic techniques to evaluate per-
formance and parametric, stochastic techniques to verify variables impacting performance
variation. Subsequently, Fried et al. (1999) investigated merger activity of US credit unions
from 1988 to 1995. They verified that mergers have improved service in acquired credit
unions without affecting service provision. Additionally, the article analyzed the character-
istics associated with successful credit union mergers. Figure 6 indicates that these top five
references remain influential in credit union research (see the dark tone in their respective
nodes).
Aside from articles focused strictly on credit union matters, highly recognized articles in
broader topics also underlie credit union literature references. For example, research used
Jensen and Meckling’s (1976) seminal agency theory work and articles addressing scale
efficiency, data envelopment analysis (DEA) and financial institutions (Charnes et al. 1978;
Banker et  al. 1984; Berger and Humphrey 1997). While the research base mapping con-
tains many studies from the past decade, none are among the most cited. The most recent
reference among the most cited in this base is Goddard et al. (2008), which addresses the
financial performance of US credit unions. This mapping indicates that the intellectual
base of credit union research is predominantly economic, which aligns with the topic anal-
ysis in the next subsection.

Topics

This subsection presents our analysis of the research output of credit union studies.
The macro-analysis categorizes articles of different disciplines according to how they
appeared in the databases we used. CiteSpace’s are categorized each year from 1970 to
2017 by the node type = category. Table 6 shows the top five categories. Economics is

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Scientometrics (2019) 120:929–960 947

Table 6  Main categories of Rank Category Freq.

credit union research
1 Economics 182
2 Business finance 135
3 Management 41
4 Law 10
5 Planning and development 9

the first ranked category for credit union research, while the second ranked is business
finance. Studies by Taylor (1971), Smith et al. (1981) and Fried et al. (1993) exemplify
the two top categories. Closing the top five ranking with significantly lower frequency
are management, law, and planning & development.
Investigating the keywords of articles permits a more detailed view of topics on
which credit union researchers have been working. To do so, we analysed the keywords
metadata in CiteSpace using the following parameters: (1) 10  years per interval from
1970 to 2017; (2) term source = title/abstract/author/keywords/keywords plus; (3) node
type = keywords; (4) pruning = none; (5) selection of 100% most occurred keywords per
interval up to 20; (6) look back years = unlimited; (7) link retaining factor = unlimited.
Figure 7 presents the CiteSpace map of the most frequently occurring keywords and
their respective co-occurrence links. The decades on the x-axis correspond to the first
time the keyword had been mentioned as a declared keyword. Although we set 1970 as
the initial time, the data returned the first keyword in the 1980s, which shows the arti-
cles published in the 1970s that do not have information on their keywords. The tones
of links indicate the first co-occurrence of two keywords. The darker the link’s tone,
the more recent the co-occurrence. The size of the labels is related to the frequency of
occurrence.

Fig. 7  Co-occurring keywords in credit union literature—time zone

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 948 Scientometrics (2019) 120:929–960

The 10 most frequent keywords are: credit union (166), efficiency (43), credit provi-
sion (33), performance (31), banking (28), bank (24), financial service (22), cooperative
(21), credit cooperative (16) and microfinance (15). As expected, “credit union” is the
main keyword and, as also might be expected, it is linked to most other terms. Other key-
words referring to categories of organizations are “cooperative”, “financial institutions”,
“credit cooperative”, “banks”, “savings and credit cooperative” and “cooperative sector”.
They reflect that credit unions combine financial institution and cooperation. For exam-
ple, Taylor (1971), Smith et al. (1981), and Smith (1984) all note this combination and its
implications.
The relatively high frequency of the words “bank” and “banking” perhaps denotes that
how credit unions relate to banks has been well explored. For example, their puzzling rela-
tionship where, on the one hand, credit unions coming from a social action standpoint have
a competitive advantage over earlier forms of money-lending providers (Barron 1998). On
the other hand, when different but related organizations, that is, banks and credit unions,
overlap in identity and resource space, a mutual relationship leads to legitimacy transfer
from established populations to emergent ones (Dobrev et  al. 2006). Co-occurrences of
the keywords “bank”, “banking” and “credit union” likely indicate that researchers seek to
address the relationships between the two types of organizations.
Economic performance and the social role of credit unions are two broad areas of
research relative to credit unions Fig.  7 indicates that, in the 1990s, terms such as “effi-
ciency”, “performance”, “merger” and “scale” started to appear frequently, all relating to
“credit union”. Those frequent relationships likely indicate a substantial interest by the
academic community in credit unions’ economic sustainability and performance. Other
keywords namely, “credit provision”, “financial service”, and “microfinance” indicate that
researchers appear to remain interested in credit unions’ social role (e.g., Banerjee et  al.
1994; Drakeford and Gregory 2008; Dunford 2009). From this perspective, Jones (2008)
emphasizes that credit unions can provide low income and financially excluded groups
with the accessible, professional, and affordable services that they need. In this sense,
credit unions can promote financial inclusion.
The high frequency of keywords related to economic performance and social role likely
indicates that researchers are aware of the tensions faced by credit unions. That is, they
adopt a more idealistic stance by concentrating on small groups in more disadvantaged
communities or take a more instrumentalist stance characterized by larger credit unions
attracting wealthier customers and seeking high economic performance (Fuller 1998;
McKillop et al. 2007). As Fuller (1998) notes, it is not just economic characteristics that
have drawn the attention of researchers interested in credit unions, but also their potential
to promote financial inclusion.
Other keywords indicate the most mentioned place and methodologies. The presence of
“United Kingdom” in Fig.  7 aligns with the most-cited country. That “data envelopment
analysis” appears in 1999, and “panel data” and “distance function” appear in the 2010s,
indicates that the quantitative analysis methods frequently employed characterized the eco-
nomic performance research of the period.
Notable post-2010 keywords are: “financial crisis”, “microfinance”, “credit”; “produc-
tivity”, “regulation”, “distance function”, “financial system”, and “corporate governance”.
They indicate more contemporary topics, many of them with strong citation bursts (see
Fig. 8).
Figure 8 presents the 10 keywords that CiteSpace indicates have the strongest citation
bursts, which describe fast growing topics with surging citations (Chen 2015; Chen and
Wu 2017). Once a burst has ended, the respective keyword remains in use although the

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Scientometrics (2019) 120:929–960 949

Fig. 8  Top 10 keywords with the strongest citation bursts

bursting period has passed. “Cooperative” has the strongest citation burst (5.68) reflecting
the nature of credit unions. “Microfinance” is second strongest (4.88) from 2013 to 2015.
During that period, credit union research focused on the social impact of microfinance pro-
viding credit for clients usually unserved by commercial banking for two reasons: either
the clients were dispersed or remote, or small loans lacked sufficient collateral as security
(Zhang and Izumida 2013; Ojong 2014; Amersdorffer et  al. 2015; Perilleux and Szafarz
2015). Microfinance is closely related to “credit provision”, which has the third strongest
and second longest citation burst by studies often having themes similar to “microfinance”
(Hayton 2001; Byrne et  al. 2004; Jones 2005). Credit union studies featuring “microfi-
nance” and “credit provision” keywords often focus on situations that traditional banks
avoid, thus highlighting credit unions’ role in supporting economic development (Guin-
nane 1994; McKillop and Wilson 2011), much like the early German credit unions.
The fourth strongest burst is “financial crisis”, between 2010 and 2015. Not surprisingly
the topic influenced research on credit unions which, as financial institutions, were directly
affected by the GFC of 2007‒2008. Research was concerned with its differing effects on
credit unions. This is exemplified by the increasing risk and consequent reforms of regula-
tion (McKillop et al. 2011; Cerrone 2013; Vasserot 2014), sustainable growth (Dubauskas
2012), survival (Box et al. 2013; Cato et al. 2013; Kiršiene 2014), re-engineering (Bauer
2015), credit availability for small and medium-sized enterprises (Talbot et al. 2015), and
loan rate changes (Tokle et al. 2015). In general, the studies argue that credit unions were
resilient to, but not immune from, the GFC.
To strengthen their economic position and to seek to better maintain their sustainability,
credit unions have engaged in mergers and acquisitions. “Merger” is the most prolonged
citation burst lasting from 1999 to 2009; its length is associated with the extensive mergers
occurring over that period. For example, in the USA, 3101 federally insured credit unions
merged from 1995 to 2004, that is, more than 25% of US credit unions (Bauer et al. 2009).
The reasons for, and implications of, credit union mergers explored by researchers are the
impact on service provision (Fried et al. 1999), cost efficiency (Garden and Ralston 1999),
survival (Ralston et al. 2001), determinants of acquisitions (Goddard et al. 2009), and eco-
nomic performance (Bauer et al. 2009).
The sixth strongest citation burst was “governance” and occurred between 2015 and
2017. While governance is not a new research interest, over recent years, it has been more
actively pursued in credit union research. Examples are the effects of board’s members and
directors characteristics on performance (Perilleux and Szafarz 2015; Unda 2015; Guerrero
et al. 2017), the impact of membership involvement and type on performance (Jones and
Kalmi 2015; McKillop and Wilson 2015; Yamori et al. 2017), conflicts between social and

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 950 Scientometrics (2019) 120:929–960

economic objectives (McKillop and Wilson 2015; Schmidt 2017), and risk management
practices (Caldarelli et al. 2016). How boards and membership influence the performance
of credit unions is considered in most studies on corporate governance.
It would not be practicable to address in depth every topic or article because many
topics exist, and the scope and length of this article are limited. We strongly recommend
researchers and practitioners researching the credit union sector and, those who are inter-
ested in the topics, should access the cited articles for more detail. The next subsection
analyses current research and future research directions.

Future research directions

In seeking to discover research gaps and future research directions, following our Research
Methodology, we summarized articles published in 2017, and thus identified innovative
investigation opportunities. We first provide a cluster map of keywords from the articles
published in 2017 and then devise our map of future research based on Filser et al. (2017).
To generate clusters, we used the keywords metadata in CiteSpace: (1) 1 year per slice
in 2017; (2) term source = keywords/keywords plus; (3) node type = keywords; (4) prun-
ing = pathfinder, pruning sliced networks; (5) selection of 100% most occurred keywords;
(6) look back years = unlimited; (7) link retaining factor = unlimited. After running Cit-
eSpace, we found 14 clusters with Modularity Q = 0.8397 and mean Silhouette = 0.8292.
Modularity Q score ranges from 0 to 1 whereas the Silhouette score ranges from − 1 to 1.
High modularity indicates a well-structured network and Silhouette equalling 1 indi-
cates a perfect separation from other clusters. Therefore, the two metrics indicate that the
clustering network is highly consistent. In the interests of legibility, we have removed small
clusters through the function, “Filter Out Small Clusters”. Consequently, Fig. 9 shows only
the most relevant clusters, whose details are shown in Table  7. Label sizes of nodes are
directly proportional to the frequency of keywords. Cluster labels are automatically defined
by CiteSpace. The labeling technique is the log-likelihood ratio (LLR) (Chen et al. 2010).
Clusters are numbered in descending order of size.
Figure 9 presents the main CiteSpace-generated clusters of keywords and their respec-
tive co-occurrence links. These clusters provide strong evidence to support identifying
emerging themes in the domain considering they are consistent, and nodes are recent. The

Fig. 9  Clusters of keywords from the articles published in 2017

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Scientometrics (2019) 120:929–960 951

Table 7  Main clusters of credit ID Size Silhouette Label (log-likelihood ratio)

union research in 2017
0 22 0.976 corporate governance (59.62)
1 16 0.917 basel iii (23.9)
2 15 0.897 credit institution (16.18)
3 15 0.925 technical efficiency (25.73)

most significant cluster is “corporate governance”. As Fig. 9 represents, studies related to

this cluster are concerned with themes such as board member characteristics, agency the-
ory, and monitoring behavior. The second largest cluster is “basel iii”. It contains keywords
related to the Basel Committee, accounting, and regulation. “Financial crisis”, “capital
regulation” and “earnings management” are some notable examples. Notably, “panel data”
is the most frequent keyword in this cluster. This seems to imply that econometric studies
prevail in the topic. The third ranked cluster is “credit institution”. From the keywords in
this cluster, we can recall the institutional form of credit unions, which combines finan-
cial mediation with cooperative organizational structures, thus suggesting that it remains in
vogue as a research stream. Finally, the fourth largest cluster congregates some of the most
frequently mentioned keywords in the slice: “performance”, “efficiency”, “banking” and
“merger”. The presence of these keywords forming the same cluster likely indicates objec-
tive and economic-oriented studies.
Investigating keyword clusters permitted an overview of related topics in which credit
union researchers have been working. Next, we provide a more detailed analysis of oppor-
tunities for future research themes as guided by the articles’ conclusions. While the
research opportunities’ clusters are based on topics that have already been studied, the
next directions are based on our suggestions for future research. The research opportunities
identified in the literature and our suggested opportunities are quite similar, indicating sug-
gested gaps are aligned with emerging topics in the domain.
While 32 articles were published in 2017, 18 suggested no future studies, and one was
only partly available, thus leaving 13 articles providing the basis for our suggestions for
future research (see Fig. 10, wherein the round boxes denote those 13 articles). Figure 10
also shows the studies’ proposals divided into 16 topics in the small rectangular gray boxes
that were grouped into our four prominent but related lines of research:

(1) Economic Performance: predominantly quantitative research on the performance of

credit unions, mainly regarding efficiency, risk, and return.
(2) Corporate Governance: characteristics of boards and their members, the collaboration
between cooperatives, and how efficiency is influenced.
(3) Accounting and Disclosure: a focus on transparency and reliability of accounting and
social/environmental disclosure.
(4) Credit Unions versus Banks: competition, differences, and similarities, mainly regard-
ing interest rates, market share, and relationships with members and clients.

This group of topics for future research is the largest regarding authors’ proposals and
aligns with most previous research. Further, it is closely related to other groups, nota-
bly accounting and disclosure and corporate governance, as illustrated by links between
authors. Economics will likely continue to dominate most future studies on credit unions
although probably with some focus on new themes and approaches.

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 952 Scientometrics (2019) 120:929–960

(1) Economic Performance (2) Corporate Governance

Other methodologies for the assessment of Models of multi level interactions to

the financial and economic performance (e.g.
PEARLS rather than CAMELS)
More and better output and input variables to
estimate efficiency, including efficiency of
branches for internal benchmarking
New internal and external variables that are
determinant for efficiency (e.g. regulation,
governance, financial crisis)
Impact of uninsured deposits and excess
share insurance on risk and return in an
environment of increasing interest rates
Silva, et al. 2017 investigate how board's group and members'
individual variables may influence each other
Joo, et al. 2017
Find out whether identity and personality
Martínez, et al. 2017 characteristics of board members explain
directors’ oversight role behaviors
Guerrero, et al. 2017
Alternative variables to investigate the causal
Yamori, et al. 2017 relationship between the corporate governance
structure and efficiency
Schmidt, 2017
Cooperation between cooperatives through
Van Dalsem, 2017
regional, national and international structures

(3) Accounting and Disclosure (4) Credit Unions versus Banks

New measures based on members’ savings

Historical explanations on the dominance of
and shares to track the application of Souza, 2017
credit unions in some countries
cooperative principles

Dal Magro, et al. 2017

Investigating characteristics of auditing in Inquiring whether the competition and interest
credit unions. (e.g. relationship of the use of rates of banks and credit unions change in
red flags and occurrence of frauds) Bussler, et al. 2017 times of crisis

Further studies on earnings management Comparison to banks regarding website

practices by credit unions (e.g. different types
or groups of credit unions)
Different avenues of social, environmental and
governance disclosures practices (e.g. use of
internet, newsletters, etc.)
Bressan, et al. 2017 characteristics and their impact on
clients/members relationship quality
Brun, et al. 2017
Investigating whether the differences observed
Mathuva, et al. 2017 between websites of banks and credit unions
also exist in mobile environment

Fig. 10  Map of future research directions for studies on credit unions

Four topics emerge from seven articles centred on economics and performance. Four
articles (Guerrero et al. 2017; Martinez-Campillo et al. 2017; Schmidt 2017; Yamori et al.
2017), indicate a gap in new internal and external determinants of credit unions’ effi-
ciency. Determinants proposed are regulation, governance, and impacts of financial cri-
sis, although new determinants do not need to be restricted to these topics. Aside from
new determinants, advances that relate to achieving social or corporate goals and resource
use measures are also needed (Joo et al. 2017; Martinez-Campillo et al. 2017; Silva et al.
2017). In this sense, Silva et  al. (2017) recommend using other methodologies to assess
the financial and economic performance of credit unions. Further, while risk and return
are also concerning, more specifically, Van Dalsem (2017) proposes to check the impact of
uninsured deposits and excess share insurance in an environment of increasing rates.
The second line of research is corporate governance, which deals with gaps correspond-
ing to the board and members relationships, and directors’ behavior (Guerrero et al. 2017).
Corporate governance also helps shape corporate structure and efficiency (Yamori et  al.
2017). Collaboration between cooperatives through regional, national and international
structures is viewed as a promising topic (Schmidt 2017). Such corporate governance top-
ics are also related to economic performance through common articles (see Fig. 10) dem-
onstrating that the two distinct lines of research are related.
The third line of research, accounting and disclosure, includes new measurement meth-
ods, auditing, accounting practices, and social and environmental disclosure. Schmidt
(2017) proposes investigating new measures to track applications of cooperative princi-
ples centred on value creation for members. Schmidt’s proposal links with new estimates
of efficiency, from more of an accounting and membership view. Dal Magro and Cunha
(2017) suggest more closely investigating the characteristics of auditing in credit unions.
One specific aspect is how using ‘red flags’ relates to the occurrence of frauds (Bussler
et al. 2017). A related topic is earnings management by credit unions, which Bressan et al.

13
Scientometrics (2019) 120:929–960 953

(2017) recommend should be studied further. Finally, addressing disclosure, Mathuva et al.
(2017) propose new research avenues focusing on social, environmental, and governance
disclosure practices, by addressing each of these elements in a co-ordinated, strategic and
comprehensive manner.
The relationship of credit unions and banks drives the fourth and last future research
direction. Suggestions include that researchers advance the study of competition by com-
paring how the two types of financial institution act in the same market. For instance, how
each addresses the financial inclusion of low-income consumers. Market share and rela-
tionships with clients and members have attracted research interest. Specifically, Souza
(2017) proposes future research into how history explains the dominance of credit unions
in some countries. Souza also proposes investigating competition between banks and
credit unions and whether comparative interest rates between them change in times of cri-
sis. Additionally, Brun et al. (2017) suggest comparing credit unions’ with banks’ website
characteristics and their impact upon the quality of how clients and members relate to other
financial institutions and whether observed differences in websites also exists in the mobile
environment.
The connected directions and lines of inquiry of the four identified lines of future
research are notable. Although some connections are not new, unique combinations of
directions or lines of inquiry could produce fruitful research. First, economic performance
and corporate governance are evidently linked. In this sense, the impact of new determi-
nants of corporate governance on credit unions’ efficiency, perhaps using new measures,
could be investigated. To ascertain how corporate governance, accounting and disclosure
are interconnected, there are apparent opportunities to explore the determinants of earn-
ings management arising from characteristics of boards and directors of credit unions.
Lastly, readers will perceive a bond between social, environmental, and governance dis-
closure practices, and the characteristics of banks’ and credit unions’ websites and mobile
presence.

Conclusion

This study has provided a bibliometric review of credit union research that could be valu-
able to those interested in the topic, particularly given the apparent absence of such a study
and the value of the research area to the international academic community. The study
has confirmed that credit union research has grown significantly and will likely sustain in
the foreseeable future, particularly considering credit unions’ important role in providing
microcredit and other (niche) financial services. We have explored the literature in Scopus
and WoS. The use of these complementary databases has enabled us to comprehensively
review citations and articles from different countries, journals and authors, and of varying
cited references, and topics; we have also suggested directions for future research. Further,
using CiteSpace allowed us to map the networks of co-authorship, co-citations, and co-
keywords in credit union research.
The main findings allow us to conclude that economics and business finance are the
principal areas of credit union research, although articles in sociology and history were
also observed. Credit unions are often highlighted for their capacity to provide credit
under better conditions than other financial institutions and for their potential to promote
financial inclusion. Even though the literature started to be more relevant post-1970, we
recovered articles from 1936. We verified a growth in article numbers over the last decade,

13
 954 Scientometrics (2019) 120:929–960

especially from 2015 to 2017. Regarding originating countries, the USA and the UK lead
significantly in publishing articles on credit unions, followed by Australia, Canada, Bel-
gium, Italy, and Ireland (that is, those countries with well-developed credit union sectors).
The leading authors are from the UK; indeed, we identified a notable network of British
authors publishing credit union research for which CiteSpace visualization helped under-
line the impact of research group networking and leadership on research outputs. Top-
ranked journals in finance and economics are prominent publishers of highly cited credit
union research. The most cited source is the Journal of Banking & Finance, while the jour-
nal with the largest number of articles is the Annals of Public and Cooperative Economics.
The scope of these journals and their publication of many articles on credit unions reflects
two findings: first, that credit unions combine financial and cooperative services; and sec-
ond, that interest in credit unions’ economic performance and unique social role is persis-
tent. Finally, by investigating future research directions, we identified four main avenues
of research: economic performance, corporate governance, accounting and disclosure, and
credit union/bank comparisons of customer relationships and technology.
This article contributes by systematizing the literature on credit unions, which may thus
encourage researchers to become involved in their study. The analysis may stimulate fur-
ther studies and scientific advances about the specifics of such financial institutions. Natu-
rally, scholars do not have to restrict new research to the topics identified or suggested in
this study, but it may be a useful guide. Organizations from the cooperative sector, manag-
ers, governments, central banks, and regulators can use this study to readily find the most
relevant credit union literature.
We must recognize the limitations of this study. First, is the restriction to Scopus and
WoS. Although they embrace a comprehensive bibliography and are regarded as the main
such indexes, other databases could include additional and suitable sources and records.
Second is that it was conducted exclusively in English. The scope of this study does not
include cooperative banks because, in some countries, the term applies to distinct types
of organizations. Including the term “cooperative banks” in searches would cause a mis-
representation of the literature restricted to credit unions. Therefore, further studies could
explore other databases, in other languages and, perhaps, focus on cooperative banks.
We also encourage researchers engaged in future bibliometric investigations to improve
the process designed to conduct this study and, therefore, improve the success of its
application.

Acknowledgements  This study was financed in part by the Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de
Nível Superior—Brasil (CAPES)—Finance Code 001.

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