A bibliometric investigation into the intellectual milieu of research on consumer socialization of children

Panackal, Nehajoan; Sharma, Adya; Rautela, Sonica Article A bibliometric investigation into the intellectual milieu of research on consumer socialization of children Cogent Business & Management Provided in Cooperation with: Taylor & Francis Group Suggested Citation: Panackal, Nehajoan; Sharma, Adya; Rautela, Sonica (2024) : A bibliometric investigation into the intellectual milieu of research on consumer socialization of children, Cogent Business & Management, ISSN 2331-1975, Taylor & Francis, Abingdon, Vol. 11, Iss. 1, pp. 1-22, https://doi.org/10.1080/23311975.2024.2333292 This Version is available at: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/326190 Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen: Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden. Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen. 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If the documents have been made available under an Open Content Licence (especially Creative Commons Licences), you may exercise further usage rights as specified in the indicated licence. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Cogent Business & Management ISSN: 2331-1975 (Online) Journal homepage: www.tandfonline.com/journals/oabm20 A bibliometric investigation into the intellectual milieu of research on consumer socialization of children Nehajoan Panackal, Adya Sharma & Sonica Rautela To cite this article: Nehajoan Panackal, Adya Sharma & Sonica Rautela (2024) A bibliometric investigation into the intellectual milieu of research on consumer socialization of children, Cogent Business & Management, 11:1, 2333292, DOI: 10.1080/23311975.2024.2333292 To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/23311975.2024.2333292 © 2024 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group Published online: 28 Mar 2024. Submit your article to this journal Article views: 937 View related articles View Crossmark data Citing articles: 2 View citing articles Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at https://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=oabm20 Marketing | research article Cogent Business & ManageMent 2024, VoL. 11, no. 1, 2333292 A bibliometric investigation into the intellectual milieu of research on consumer socialization of children nehajoan Panackal , adya sharma and sonica rautela symbiosis Centre for Management studies-Pune, symbiosis international (Deemed university), Pune, india ABSTRACT studies on consumer socialization delve into how customers acquire an interest in a product or service. these studies attempt to comprehend customer attitudes, perceptions, and behaviors towards a product or service as a result of diverse social interactions. children are a vital part of this process. Family members, classmates and friends, the media, school, other institutions, and cultures all impact children’s socialization process, resulting in consumption decisions. a glance at the literature on consumer socialization of children throughout the last five decades shows how related literature has evolved over a period of time. consumer socialization is vital in the market and consumer research. however, there is a need to offer a more comprehensive picture of the work that scholars worldwide have done in this sector. Bibliometric analysis is a common tool for tracing the evolution of literature over the previous decades. the researchers in this study employed bibliometric analysis to assess a study done in consumer socialization. the current study used bibliometric analysis to discover the most frequently cited papers, journals, nations, organizations, and authors in the ethics and higher education literature. in addition, the study seeks to comprehend new research areas in consumer socialization. 1. Introduction the famous greek philosopher aristotle once said, Man is by nature a social animal; an individual who is unsocial naturally and not accidentally is either beneath our notice or more than human. Society is something that precedes the individual. human beings are social beings and therefore the process of socialization plays a vital role in all aspects of their life. socialization can be defined as the progression of acquiring knowledge, understanding norms, and developing ideologies that inculcate skills required to sustain in society (aleti et al., 2023). consumer socialization - a field of research that dwells on how children develop an interest in a product or service has been highlighted as an important topic for consumer researchers (John, 1999). it tries to also understand consumer attitudes, perceptions, and behaviors towards a product or service that develops due to various social interactions. consumer socialization as a field of study has grabbed the attention of policy-makers, consumer researchers, psychologists, and marketers (kerrane etal., 2015). an exciting area of research for marketers is how children get socialized into the role of consumers (tang, 2019). this socialization could be primary or secondary. Primary socialization takes place during early childhood days. at the same time, secondary socialization takes place after childhood days. children interact with various socialization agents and grow into ‘consumers of the future’. these ‘consumers of the future’ shape the forthcoming marketplaces. extant literature has designated consumer socialization among children as a ‘complex, multifaceted © 2024 the author(s). Published by informa uK Limited, trading as taylor & Francis group CONTACT nehajoan Panackal [email protected] symbiosis Centre for Management studies-Pune, symbiosis international (Deemed university), Pune, india https://doi.org/10.1080/23311975.2024.2333292 this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. the terms on which this article has been published allow the posting of the accepted Manuscript in a repository by the author(s) or with their consent. ARTICLE HISTORY received 13 June 2023 revised 28 June 2023 accepted 13 March 2024 KEYWORDS socialisation; children; bibliometric analysis; consumer socialization REVIEWING EDITOR len tiu Wright, De Montfort University Faculty of Business and law, United kingdom SUBJECTS children and the Media; Marketing research; consumer Behaviour; children and Youth 2 n. Panackal et al. process that involves four main components, influenced by the surrounding social structures, which include parents as primary agents’ (hota & Bartsch, 2019). the four component includes communicating about consumption, acquiring autonomy in consumption, involvement in purchase decisions, and restraint of consumption or exposure to media (hota & Bartsch, 2019; rose, 1999). children are also vital influencers in a family’s decision-making process. a study by carlson etal. (2001), showed that parenting styles and communication patterns adopted by parents are crucial in children’s exposure, which impacts their involvement in the socialization process. also, culture and developmental timetable (expectation of parents about what is ‘typical’ or ‘normal’ for a child at a specific age) impact the socialization process of children (rose, 1999). Findings of a study by hota and Bartsch (2019) in an indian context reveal that consumer socialization processes differ with the ‘children’s age (early childhood versus adolescence) and family structures (nuclear vs. stem vs. extended)’. 1.1. Research gap and research questions consumer socialization is an interesting area to explore and has an impressive body of research to its credit. Past studies have explored varied facets of consumer socialization research and have also reflected on children’s growing importance and role as consumers. an in-depth insight into the literature on the consumer socialization of children shows that a substantial number of studies have focused on family communication, parental style, sibling relation, media, peers, social aspects, and motives of consumption and materialism. John (1999) merged and presented the finding of 25 years (from 1974 to 1998) of research on consumer socialization of children. interestingly, there has been a considerable amount of research contribution in this domain post-2008 which makes it an essential and interesting area to explore for researchers as well as marketers. there is a strong need to conduct a study that provides a comprehensive view of the nature of work done in consumer socialization. also, there is a need to understand how literature has developed over a period of years. this would help in understanding the extant state of research work in this area and present an insight into the emerging areas of interest. the present study is an attempt to address this research gap using bibliometric analysis. Bibliometric analysis is an effective method with a well-defined structure for analyzing a particular research domain. it is helpful in providing insights into the nature of work published, key contributors, and key focal points of research. another exciting feature of the bibliometric analysis is the insights it provides that help researchers understand the network of co-citation that helps identify emerging research areas. the researchers have followed bibliometric analysis to address the following research questions: rQ1: What are the current publishing trends in consumer socialization of children in terms of journals, fields, authors, countries, time, and institutions? rQ2: What are the most influential papers and research themes in this field? rQ3: What is the intellectual framework of research on the consumer socialization of children? What are the emerging research trends in this field? to find the answers to these three research questions, the researchers have studied articles published in the area of consumer socialization and children from the scopus database for the last five decades, i.e., from 1971 to May 2023. the findings have been showcased systematically in this paper. the introduction section of the paper gives an overview of the consumer socialization process. the next section discusses the study’s theoretical background, followed by the data collection process and research methodology. the paper concludes with the findings and discussions. 2.Theoretical background 2.1. Consumer socialization consumer socialization is an important research area in underlying consumer buying behavior (ekström, 2006). research done by Ward (1974) forms the basis for studies in consumer socialization. according to cogent BUsiness & ManageMent 3 Ward (1974), consumer socialization is ‘the process by which young people acquire skills, knowledge, and attitudes relevant to their functioning as consumers in the marketplace.’ consumer researchers have referred to this seminal work to study the influence of family dynamics on the spending patterns of children. in consumer socialization studies, the prime focus is on the consumption environment and actors that get influenced by the consumption environment. the theory of consumer socialization studies how each actor influences the other. this influence could be reciprocated equally or unequally (aleti et al., 2015). the actors who take on the responsibility of influencing are called socialization agents. it is crucial to understand these agents’ role and their impact on the final purchase decision. it is, therefore, important for researchers to identify who the socialization agents are and the impact that they would have on the consumer socialization process of children (sookdew, 2020). this knowledge is beneficial to marketers in developing marketing strategies that would positively influence the agents. this would enable marketers to understand opportunities to stimulate consumer knowledge about a product or service that would result in purchase decisions. 2.2. Consumer socialization and children a critical study that laid the foundation for consumer socialization of children is the seminal work done by John (1999). the study focused on five aspects of children’s consumer socialization. this included children’s knowledge due to advertisements, transaction knowledge that focused primarily on sales, decision-making ability and skills of the children, purchase influence, and consumption motive. the study highlighted how these five focal points were essential in understanding the socialization process of children at different levels. as the study of children’s consumer socialization evolved, family communication styles, parenting styles, and family consumer socialization became focal areas of research. a critical development in this area was the study of children as influencers for purchase decisions in the family. Parents nowadays acquire new information from their children; children have become integral to the decision-making process. studies on the re-socialization of parents focus on how parents acquire information from children, especially in specific segments that involve technology. children’s consumer socialization relies heavily on communication (aggarwal & anon, 2019). the communication gap between children and media has nearly vanished with the development of internet platforms (Morris, 2019). children have access to information through various direct and indirect sources. Mothers play a crucial part in the consumer socialization of children (Watkins et al., 2021), and the mother’s parenting style is vital in the child’s exposure to media and the development of his/her consuming behavior (Wisenblit et al., 2013). research by Watne etal. (2011), highlighted the importance of product category as one of the aspects that influence children’s involvement in influencing their parent’s purchase decisions. Parents quite often rely on their children for technology-driven purchases (gangwar & Dewani, 2022). children today are born in the era of technology. they can pick up and adapt to technology at a fast pace as compared to their parents. hence, parents value their input in purchase decisions, especially in this segment (kharuhayothin, 2018). research in consumer socialization has focused on various dimensions such as parenting style, communication pattern, societal influence, product category for influence, stages of child development and its impact on influence, sibling influence, etc. 3. Research methodology Bibliometric analysis helps quantify the existing literature in a particular field of study. the method adopts a set of tools that helps researchers analyze data, identify patterns and networks in research. the insights drawn from bibliometric analysis help the researcher better understand the research topic of study as it provides crucial information on the leading articles, authors, countries, and institutions that have contributed the most and impacted the research area. the bibliometric process outlines a structured set of steps to follow. the critical steps in bibliometric analysis include data sourcing, screening, and analysis. 4 n. Panackal et al. 3.1. Data sourcing the preliminary and most crucial part of the bibliometric analysis is data sourcing. it is the process of identifying the most suited database for the analysis, identifying suitable keywords, and then running a search command. the researchers have referred to the scopus database to study published research articles that discuss consumer socialization. scopus is a renowned and respected database provided by elsevier co. compared to other databases, scopus covers a wide range of journals as it is internationally oriented. scopus provides access to the references in a paper that helps a researcher to go both forward and backward in time to identify other literature in the field of research (Falagas et al., 2008). other key features of the scopus database that make it more comprehensive and user-friendly include an index that helps researchers identify open-access titles and checks the user’s entitlement before delivering a full-text image which helps the researcher identify if the article is accessible in case an entire article is not available in scopus it provides a link to the publisher’s website so that researchers can check the availability of the research article on the publisher’s website (Burnham, 2006). another critical aspect of data sourcing is keyword identification for sourcing. to ensure accuracy, the researchers first conducted a thorough literature review on consumer socialization of children to understand the repetitive keywords and synonyms. they were used by other researchers that discussed consumer socialization. the researchers brainstormed together after the initial literature review to finalize the words. the use of appropriate Booleans was considered before finalizing the keywords. as shown in Figure 1, the initial search words were ‘sociali*ation,’ ‘child*,’ and ‘consumer*’ searched in the title abstract and keyword in the scopus Database. the search was performed on 11th May 2023. this initial search helped to yield 393 results. the researchers then applied two levels of filters. in the first filter, the search was limited to articles over book chapters, conference papers, reviews, books, editorials, short surveys, notes, conference reviews, and letters. Before being published, articles indexed in scopus go through a rigorous peer review procedure that is frequently double-blind. Before an article is published, the reviewers offer an objective assessment and comments that are considered. in order to ensure high standards of study, the researchers decided to use publications exclusively. the second level of filtering, as seen in Figure 1, restricted the search to english-language journal articles that had already been published. the search helped to yield 293 results over a period of five decades from 1971 to May 2023. the downloaded format was then screened for missing values, and repeated data. Data screening is crucial to ensure that all the assumptions, outliers, and error concerns have been managed. Figure 1. Data sourcing based on scopus database. cogent BUsiness & ManageMent 5 3.2. Data analysis citation analysis and co-citation analysis are two essential components of bibliometric analysis. citation analysis is based on the importance that academics accord a work when they cite it as a source. citation analysis employs descriptors like language, authors, institutions, nations, etc., to assist researchers in finding significant contributors to the field of research. the publishing frequency broken down by year makes comprehending how much research is needed in a particular field easier. according to Mccain (1983), co-citation analysis examines the publications that cite a particular pair of references by gathering information from databases and utilizing analytical and graphic presentation approaches. according to ramos‐rodríguez and ruíz‐navarro (2004), co-citation may indicate content similarities and assist in identifying groupings of themes and researchers and how they may be connected. 4. Results getting in-depth insights into the research articles on consumer socialization from 1971 to 2023 was an essential objective of our study. in the scopus database, work on consumer socialization first surfaced in 1981. in the current study, the researchers divided the research approach into three essential phases. Data was gathered from the scopus database in the initial phase. the preceding section has covered this in great detail. the second step in the research approach was studying the search results to provide the findings of citation analysis. in the third stage, co-citation analysis was carried out using Vos Viewer and Biblioshiny by r studio. the co-citation analysis assisted in identifying new clusters that offer a foundation for more study in consumer socialization. 4.1. Overview of research table 1 provides an interesting overview of the search results. 293 research articles were used for bibliometric analysis through citation and co-citation analysis. the table shows that 160 institutions have made vital contributions to this field of research through 147 different journals. another fascinating insight is that researchers from 48 countries have participated in research on consumer socialization. 4.2. Citation analysis 4.2.1. Publication trend 293 papers on consumer socialization of children have been published between 1971 to 11th May 2023. the number of papers published in a year till 2007 was a single digit. as shown in table 2 and Figure 2, from 2008 onwards, consumer socialization gained more interest. this period they marked the beginning of social media’s influence on consumers. this generation was also well adapted to the internet and technology. 4.2.2. Country wise publication trend as shown in table 3 and Figures 3 and 4, 48 countries have contributed to the research on consumer socialization. the United states has the maximum number of research articles at 117. the United kingdom, australia, and india followed this. the difference between the articles in the United states and the United kingdom is relatively high. this shows that a blend of developed and developing countries contributes to this research area. this indicates that consumer socialization is essential in developing and developed countries. Table 1. overview of research articles published in the scopus database on consumer socialisation. total documents 293 total number of institutes/ universities/ organizations 160 total number of Journals 147 total number of countries 48 6 n. Panackal et al. 4.2.3. Most influential journal by number of articles the 293 articles are from 147 different journals. table 4 and Figure 5 represent the most prominent journals that publish consumer socialization articles. the top three journals to publish research related to consumer socialization of children were Young consumers, the international Journal of consumer studies, and the Journal of consumer Marketing. Most of these journals belong to the Q1 quartile of the scopus database. a scopus quartile is a category of scientific publications that demonstrates its trustworthiness. the quartile shows the scientific community’s demand for Journal. each journal subject group is broken into four quartiles: Q1, Q2, Q3, and Q4. Q1 comprises the best 25% of the list’s journals. this shows that the articles on consumer socialization have been majorly published in the best journals and have demand among researchers. Many of these journals have an australian Business Deans council (aBDc) ranking of a and a high h index. a look at the local citations, as shown in Figure 6, shows that Journalrnal of consumer research has the maximum number of citations at 1027 citations, followed by advances in consumer research with 344 Table 2. Year wise number of papers published. Year number of papers published 2023 3 2022 7 2021 9 2020 18 2019 15 2018 15 2017 18 2016 17 2015 19 2014 21 2013 11 2012 16 2011 8 2010 12 2009 11 2008 11 Figure 2. Year wise number of papers published. Table 3. Country wise number of papers published. Country number of articles published united states 117 united Kingdom 34 australia 24 india 19 Canada 13 Hong Kong 13 France 12 new Zealand 12 China 10 Denmark 8 Malaysia 7 ireland 6 Pakistan 6 germany 4 israel 4 netherlands 4 turkey 4 cogent BUsiness & ManageMent 7 citations and Journal of consumer marketing with 205 local citations. the journals with the most citations focus on consumer-based research as their core research area. 4.2.4. Most influential institutes/university/organizations the 293 articles were affiliated with 160 institutes/Universities/organizations to which the Journals were affiliated. as shown in table 5 and Figure 7, the top institutes were hong kong Baptist University and the University of nebraska-lincoln, with 9 papers published on consumer socialization. iowa state University closely followed this with 8 papers. the University of arizona had a total of 7 papers published in the area of consumer socialization. 4.2.5. Most influential research article the Most influential research article was ‘consumer socialization of children: a retrospective look at twenty-five years of research’ written in 1999 by D. r. John. it had 1272 citations. this was followed by ‘treating children With early-onset conduct Problems: intervention outcomes for Parent, child, and teacher training’, written in 2004 with 604 citations. this is represented in table 6 and Figure 8. 4.2.6. Three-field plot as shown in Figure 9, the three-field plot gives the relation between three key areas, i.e., authors, keywords, and Journal of Publication. this is done by using sankey Plots. the ten items showed Figure 3. Country wise number of papers published. Figure 4. graphical representation of country wise number of papers published. 14 n. Panackal et al. Cluster 1: changing role of media and parents as agents of consumer socialization of children. communication plays a significant role in the consumer socialization of children. With the advent of online platforms, the communication gap between the child and media has almost disappeared. cluster 1 is dominated by research highlighting the advantages and challenges of consumer socialization of children by media. the cluster also brings into focus the role of parents as socialization agents. Parents who perceive their children to possess higher levels of media skills believe that advertisements will Figure 14. Density visualization of Country wise co-authorship network. Figure 15. Country wise co-authorship network. cogent BUsiness & ManageMent 15 have less negative influence on the child. this positive perception of the media skills of their children decreases their parental concerns and responsibility, while a negative perception makes them more concerned. Parents’ knowledge and their co-playing with their children mitigated the harmful effect of violent video games. though children regard television advertisements as an important source of communication for new products, they rely on their parents more for authentic information (Fan & li, 2010; holvoet etal., 2021; Walker etal., 2018). online media was also found to play a major role in the political socialization of children. however, peer pressure also emerged as an essential element of online communication on different social media sites (Bauer et al., 2011; thaichon & Quach, 2016). consumer socialization of children has increased their influence in buying products, especially when the product is food or beverage. children do not feel the need to discuss buying food/beverages with their parents and make the decision themselves. on the other hand, parents still believe that they have power in children’s decision-making regarding food and beverage (chaudhary et al., 2018; Page et al., 2018). the different styles of communication of parents also help in predicting a child’s consumer behavior. More television exposure and less parental control had a direct relation to child’s preference for branded products (aitken & Watkins, 2017; krcmar & lapierre, 2018). gender is also one of the most influences on children’s social development. a child’s cultural environment plays a role in defining the gender stereotype. children with same-gender siblings or girls who spent more time in playschool had more gender-typed toys. the cultural environment affects the child’s consumer development, and thus, differences are observed in their consumer socialization (lapierre & rozendaal, 2018; MacPhee & Prendergast, 2019). Cluster 2: socialization of children and re-socialization of parents.the research papers in this cluster are centered around the consumer socialization of children in general, with a particular focus on children’s financial socialization. cluster two papers also direct the research in the re-socialization of parents by children. the central theme of this cluster is the influence of different socialization agents on children and the influence of children on parents/family. television, the internet, and parents emerged as major predictors of children’s role as co-decision makers (chaudhary & gupta, 2014). Peer’s influence was more significant than siblings’ influence to develop healthy eating habits (ragelienė & grønhøj, 2021). it was empirically proven that adolescents do socialize with their mothers, and hence children are important re-socialization agents for parents. children’s influence was especially more in areas of computer-related and small high-tech products (ahmad et al., 2011; essiz & Mandrik, 2021; Watne et al., 2011). Pester power was portrayed positively as a good-natured game between parents and children towards consumer socialization of children (lawlor & Prothero, 2011). the intergenerational influence was crucial for brand transfer and sustainable consumer attitudes. strong communication between Parent and child helped in greater intergenerational similarity, while a strong peer influence harmed intergenerational similarity (essiz & Mandrik, 2021; kharuhayothin & kerrane, 2018; sotelo-Duarte & gónzalez-cavazos, 2023). Parents play a major role in children’s key financial attitudes and behavior. Financial well-being was found to have a positive relationship with financial knowledge, and children’s financial knowledge was influenced by childhood experiences related to financial matters. attitude toward money also strongly predicted financial well-being (Mcneill & turner, 2013; Pandey et al., 2020; sabri et al., 2012). Parents’ influence on children’s financial socialization was more than financial education at education institutes (shim et al., 2010). cluster 2 highlights the critical role of parents as a socialization agent for many parameters, including financial socialization. cluster 2 also highlights intergenerational influence and re-socialization of parents by children. Table 7. Co-occurrence of author keywords. author keyword Links Link strength occurrences Children 18 128 73 socialization 15 58 36 Consumer socialization 18 77 71 Consumer Behavior 10 43 26 Parents 12 37 17 advertising 10 28 15 Family 10 28 10 influence 9 17 5 Consumption 9 16 11 16 n. Panackal et al. Cluster 3: the consumption behaviour of children.cluster 3 provides a look at how children’s consumption behavior/pattern is affected by various factors. the close relationship between parent and child was a significant influencer in determining the different consumption patterns of children. thus, the green consumption value of youth was directly impacted by the green consumption values of parents/family (gong et al., 2022). even the stories/narratives told in childhood impacted consumption behavior (kennedy et al., 2022). the cultural practices and local media influenced parents’ behavior which in turn influenced the socialization of the children (kordrostami et al., 2018). child obesity, a primary global concern, was also found to depend on the consumption habits of families. thus, besides biological makeup, family food preferences and parents’ beliefs about weight were instrumental in developing children’s attitudes toward child obesity (Jayanthi & reddy, 2017; Moore et al., 2016). children who visited stores with their parents for shopping had different consumption behavior than those children who did not accompany their parents (krcmar et al., 2017). even children’s gambling attitudes and consumption patterns depended on parents’ importance of events by culture and media. Parents’ cultural capital (socially rare and distinctive tastes of parents) significantly predicts children developing those distinctive tastes and values (Pitt et al., 2017; Wei et al., 2019). intergenerational influence plays a vital role in adults’ consumption patterns of technology. reliance on children to help them learn new technology determines the consumption process (Perez etal., 2019). the role of family/parents supported by culture and media provides insight into how children develop consumption patterns. Cluster 4: family communication and consumer Socialization of children. cluster 4 has many studies which have brought into focus the role of family communication in consumer socialization of children and family decision-making. the cluster also has studies that have used qualitative methods to understand consumer socialization and decision-making in more detail (cody, 2015; harrison et al., 2021). the qualitative design method was used to understand the role of youth as assistive technology device consumers (ryan et al., 2013). the influence of children as young as 2–7 years in shopping excursions was found through in-depth interviews (gaumer etal., 2013). the snacking behavior of children and their perception of healthy and unhealthy food was also explored through qualitative methods (chan et al., 2016). children are exposed to video games from a very young age. Video games were found to mediate children’s personal and family relationships in both positive and negative ways (Bassiouni & hackley, 2016). Mothers play a significant role in children’s consumer socialization, and the mother’s parental style is instrumental in a child’s exposure to media and the development of his/her consumption behavior (Wisenblit etal., 2013). an open communication pattern between parents and children impacts children’s consumer socialization and helps in the re-socialization of parents, especially related to sustainable products. Different patterns of family communication have been discussed and debated, but there is a convergence that family communication plays a vital role in defining the consumer behavior of children (aleti et al., 2015; Bakir et al., 2006; sharma & sonwaney, 2015; Watne & Brennan, 2011). the clusters give an overview of the emerging trends in consumer socialization of children. the clusters help us understand that while parents are an essential socialization agent for children, children help re-socialize parents after certain years. the joint defining agent in all clusters is the parent’s role in developing children’s consumption Behavior. Parents’ communication patterns, the relationship between parents and children, and parents’ perception of different products all play an essential role in developing a child’s consumption behavior. Parents must be aware and informed about their crucial role in educating children about consumerism. Parents and media are essential socializing agents for children. however, fast-tracked changes in media, including its easy accessibility to children from a very young age, have brought into focus the need to debate and discuss its increasing role in children’s consumerism. this also highlights the need for redefining parents’ role in providing accessibility and knowledge to children regarding media. currently, different media platforms are readily available to children of all age groups. children can be an easy target for marketers. Policymakers need different policies to protect children from the harmful effects of media. 4.4.3. Country wise co-authorship network collaborations among authors brings a diversity of ideas to research. When the authors are from different countries it makes the area of research richer with different perspectives. Vos viewer was used to analyse the network of co-authorship country wise. the minimum number of documents from a country was kept at a threshold value of 3. 24 countries met the criteria. however, Denmark, germany, italy and cogent BUsiness & ManageMent 17 south africa had no links with other country authors. hence the network analysis had 20 items divided into 7 clusters with 33 links and 49 link strength. the same has been demonstrated in Figures 10 and 11. cluster 1 showed co-authorship links between canada, china, Malaysia and Pakistan. cluster 2 showed a closed working relationship between israel, netherlands, turkey and Usa. india, France and oman were the three countries/items of cluster 3. cluster 4 highlighted the close working relationship between ireland, new Zealand and the United kingdom. as shown in table 8, the Usa had the highest number of links followed by the United kingdom, china and india 5. Conclusion and implications of the study the process of how the socialization of children takes place to take up the role of consumers and insights into how children make consumption decisions are important research areas for marketers (ekström, 2006). Various agents influence the socialization of children. these include family members, peers and friends, media, school, and other institutions and cultures (Mandrik et al., 2005). Parental communication and style are important factors shaping how children impact consumption decisions. in this research, the researchers have used bibliometric analysis to analyze the study on consumer socialization. the citation analysis results draw interesting inferences; it shows that the most cited article was ‘consumer socialization of children: a retrospective look at twenty-five Years of research’ by John, D. r. published in 1992. it had 1272 citations. this paper was closely followed by ‘treating children with early-onset conduct Problems: intervention outcomes for Parent, child, and teacher training,’ written in 2004 with 604 citations. the top three journals to publish research related to consumer socialization of children were Young consumers, the international Journal of consumer studies, and the Journal of consumer Marketing. Most of these journals belong to the Q1 quartile of the scopus database. at the same time, the most influential institutions were the hong kong Baptist University and the University of nebraska-lincoln, with 9 papers each published on consumer socialization. a look at the country-wise contributions shows that the United states of america dominates the list, followed by the United kingdom. it was also interesting to note that both developed and developing countries have contributed to this research area. the results of the co-citation analysis for country-wise co-authorship showed the Usa had the highest number of links, followed by the United kingdom, china, and india. seven clusters were identified that showcased the collaboration between researchers from different countries. Drawing on the results of cluster analysis, the keywords help in defining four broad research themes. cluster 1: the changing role of media and parents as agents of consumer socialization of children; cluster 2: socialization of children and re-socialization of parents; cluster 3: consumption behavior of children; cluster 4: Family communication and consumer socialization of children. Understanding consumer socialization is important for several reasons. the key implications are discussed as follows: 5.1. Theoretical implications From the theoretical perspective the understanding of consumer socialization helps in a better understanding of the consumer learning process as well as its outcome which is a vital element of consumer behavior study. it is also important to note that the scope of consumer socialization is very broad and can ‘encompass life-long consumer socialization, different life events and spheres of consumption, Table 8. Country wise link strength. Country total link strength usa 24 uK 10 China 8 india 7 australia 6 Canada 6 Hong Kong 6 18 n. Panackal et al. dialogs, negotiations, and translations, as well as the socio-cultural context in which socialization occurs’ (ekström, 2006). all these areas provide interesting research avenues worth exploring. 5.2. Managerial implications From the managerial implication perspective, consumer socialization provides an inimitable insight into the behavior of an important market segment i.e. children that impact up to 80 percent of all everyday purchases (goodwin, 2013). according to goodwin (2013), ‘children’s spending had roughly doubled every ten years for over three decades and had tripled in the 1990’s. kids 4-12 spent $2.2 billion in 1968, and $4.2 billion in 1984. But by 1994 the figure climbed to $17.1 billion, and by 2002 their spending exceeded $40 billion. these figures are direct spending by kids. taking into account spending influence results in staggering numbers. For example, in 2012, kids buying power and influence had reached $1.2 trillion’. these figures clearly state that children constitute a market segment that is impossible to ignore. Marketers should design strategies keeping in mind the role of children in influencing the purchase. For a few product categories, children can be targeted directly by developing child-oriented messages, images, characters, themes, logos, etc. however, in other cases, an attempt can be made by marketers to bridge the ‘gap between children and parents, such as creating products, programming and activities that involve both children and adults’ (Dotson & hyatt, 2005). 5.3. Societal/public policy implication From the societal and public policy perspective the study of consumer socialization provides a deep understanding of the factors affecting the consumption behavior of children of various categories of products and services. this also includes products that fall under the category of ‘compulsive consumption’ i.e. consumption that falls under the addiction category and may have damaging consequences to the users as well as those around them (for examplealcohol, tobacco, illegal substances, social media addiction, etc.). this calls for the development of various effective and efficient policies, guidelines, and laws from the government and consumer groups to promote positive consumer behavior. also, interventions should be evidence and context-based. 6. Limitations of the research the present study is one of the very rare attempts to provide a comprehensive understanding of the literature on children’s consumer socialization. the researchers have conducted the study rigorously and meticulously. however, there exist a few limitations that need to be acknowledged. the researchers used research publications published in the scopus database only. although scopus is a well-known and reputable database, it may exclude some significant publications indexed in other databases such as the Web of science. this study might be expanded by doing a bibliometric analysis based on the search results of Web of science-indexed journals. it would also be interesting to compare the bibliometric results of scopus and Web of science databases. the use of a single database is the key limitation of the study. also, the study uses author keywords in order to conduct a co-occurrence analysis. the selection of keywords is subjective and depends on the researcher/author of the study. this means selecting author keywords as a means to conduct co-occurrence analysis is somewhat subjective also which can act as another limitation of the study. the use of bibliometric analysis provides the number of paper and their citation. the number of papers indicates quantity but, the number of citations does not always signify quality. in other words, the citation analysis is based on quantity and does not emphasize quality thus acting as a limitation. 7. Future research avenues the current study opens up a few promising avenues for future research. Firstly, the study predominantly uses bibliometric analysis. Bibliometric analysis can be carried out using different techniques and cogent BUsiness & ManageMent 19 therefore future studies can adopt other techniques to gain more insights into this area of study. secondly, this area is gaining the attention of marketers and researchers and may receive a substantial number of promising research papers in the coming future. thus, bibliometric analysis can be done at interval of seven to ten years to understand advancement in this area. thirdly, in order to understand emerging trends in consumer socialization the researchers have segregated the research into their self-generated clusters. the usage of different databases, tools, techniques, and keywords may yield different clusters and different research streams which can be an interesting avenue to explore. additionally, children are essential influencers in consumption, and their influence cannot be ignored. the analysis depicted the routes via the four selected clusters that represent how future research in consumer socialization is shaping up. this is critical for future researchers to participate and contribute rich literature to develop this area of research further. Disclosure statement no potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s). About the authors Dr. Nehajoan Panackal is a faculty in symbiosis centre for Management studies, Pune. her research interests are in the area of sustainability, human resource management, social capital and behavioural studies which has translated into publications in journals that are scopus indexed , Web of science indexed and aBDc listed. Dr. Adya Sharma, a dedicated professional with more than 20 years of experience an avid researcher, she has many case studies to her credit which are based on real-time events. she has also written research papers in reputed journals including scopus indexed journals, web of science indexed journals and has authored chapters in books. Dr. Sonica Rautela is an assistant Professor at symbiosis centre for Management studies, Pune, india. her interest areas include social Media, new Product Development, and open innovation. she has also published research papers in.scopus indexed, web of science indexed and aBDc listed journals. ORCID nehajoan Panackal http://orcid.org/0000-0002-9552-6763 adya sharma http://orcid.org/0000-0001-7040-0278 sonica rautela http://orcid.org/0000-0002-2891-3819 References aggarwal, V. s., & anon, s. (2019). influence of family communication patterns in family purchase decision making. Indian Journal of Marketing, 49(8), 1–22. https://doi.org/10.17010/ijom/2019/v49/i8/146170 ahmad, M., Md sidin, s., & omar, n. a. (2011). a preliminary investigation of adolescents’ perception of the role of internet in parent consumer socialization. IUP Journal of Marketing Management, 10(3), 7–17. aitken, r., & Watkins, l. (2017). “harm or good?”: consumer perceptions of corporate strategic giving in schools. 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