Mapping Sustainable Social Relationships in Live-Streaming Commerce: A Bibliometric Analysis of Customer Experience, Online Reputation and Trust Research

Abstract

With the development of internet technology, a boom in live-streaming e-commerce has rapidly emerged both domestically and internationally, attracting widespread attention from the academic community. However, the existing literature is vast and complex, and lacks systematic organization and synthesis. This paper examines live-streaming e-commerce from three perspectives—customer experience, online reputation, and trust. Using a sample of 708 Chinese and English-language articles published domestically and internationally from 2016 to 2025, it employs a mixed-methods systematic literature review approach to conduct a comparative analysis of domestic and international research on live-streaming e-commerce, perform a structured analysis of the integrated framework, and identify future research directions. First, through bibliometric analysis using advanced tools such as Citespace and VOSviewer, this study objectively reveals the current state of research, key research topics, and evolving trends in live-streaming e-commerce. Second, based on the Theory-Context-Characteristics-Method (TCCM) framework, an integrated framework for live-streaming e-commerce research was constructed to systematically evaluate the theoretical foundations, contextual factors, key characteristics, and research methods employed in this field, thereby enabling a structured analysis of the research trajectory and evolution of the literature in this domain. The results indicate that since the inception of live-streaming e-commerce research in 2016, the scope of topics has continuously expanded and evolved, gradually forming a three-dimensional knowledge structure centered on sustainable development and supported by “customer experience, online reputation, and trust.”