Scientific Literature on Financial Technology (FinTech): A Citation and Altmetric Analysis

Abstract

Background: There has been a growing need to demonstrate the impact of research in recent decades. One of the conventional ways used to evaluate the impact of scientific output is citation analysis. The non-conventional metrics which evaluate academic production through social media are called altmetrics or alternative metrics. Purpose: The study aimed to identify and characterize the top-cited and top altmetric publications in the field of FinTech. Methods: We performed a search of the Dimensions database using the keyword “FinTech” to identify the 25 top-cited and 25 top altmetric publications respectively. The identified publications were screened for data related to traditional citation-based indicators and altmetric indicators. Results: There were marginal overlaps between the top-cited and top altmetric articles. The top-cited articles were published in 24 high impact journals. These articles were published from 2015-2019. The majority of the articles (72%) originated from three countries (China 28%, the United States 24%, and Germany 20%). Compared to top-cited articles, altmetric attention scores of top 25 publications ranged from 16 to 123. These articles were published in 18 journals with high impact factors. Top 25 altmetric articles originated from 13 different countries. Twitter and Mendeley were the most popular altmetric data resources. Strong correlation was found between citation counts and altmetric scores (r = .81, p<.01). Conclusion: This study presents the characteristics of top-cited and top altmetric articles in the field of FinTech, thereby providing two different perspectives for assessing their impact on related scientific production.

Keywords: Altmetrics, Bibliometrics, Citation, Dimensions, FinTech.

View PDF