Purpose -Interest in reverse logistics (RL) as a critical component of supply chain management (SCM) is gaining more traction with both practitioners and academics. Because of RL's growing strategic importance, it is imperative to conduct a timely and comprehensive literature review and to identify associated opportunities for future research.Design/methodology/approach -In this paper, the researchers conduct an extensive bibliometric analysis of published academic articles on reverse logistics (RL) for the period of 1992-2015. Specifically, the CiteSpace software is utilized to conduct document co-citation analysis and burst detection analysis on 912 selected RL articles and their 22,642 references.Findings -This research identifies the most influential RL research publications/citations in each of the five periods and their research contribution. Using co-citation analysis, we are able to identify and illustrate major research themes, knowledge groups, and future research opportunities in the RL field.Originality/value -In contrast to existing literature review studies in the logistics field, our study uses impact factor as a key article selection criterion. The influential articles identified in this process well represent the core literature and RL body of knowledge and have important implications for future research.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.