Banking Research in the GCC Region and Agenda for future research – A bibliometric examination

Purpose - This paper provides a comprehensive review of the influential and intellectual aspects of the literature on the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) region's banking activities.

Design/methodology/approach – This study undertakes a bibliometric meta-analysis review of the GCC region banking literature, covering 199 articles published between 2004 and 2022, extracted from the Web of Science (WoS) database, followed by a content analysis of highly cited papers.
Findings - This paper identifies the influential aspects of GCC region banking literature in terms of journals, articles, authors, universities, and countries. The paper also identifies and discusses five major research clusters: i) bank efficiency, ii) corporate governance and disclosure, iii) performance and risk-taking, iv) systemic risk, bank stability and risk spillovers, and v) intellectual capital. Finally, it identifies gaps in the literature and highlights some important research issues that provide directions for future research.

Originality - To the authors’ knowledge, this is the first review paper on GCC region banking literature. This study provides the regulators, practitioners and academics with valuable insight and an in-depth understanding of the banking system of the GCC region.