From E-Commerce to Governance: A Triple Helix Scientometric Mapping of ASEAN’s Digital Trade Research Evolution (2015-2023)

This study presents a comprehensive scientometric analysis of digital trade research in ASEAN from 2015 to 2023, mapping how the field evolved across the re-opening (2020-2021), recovery (2021-2022), and early resilience (2022-2023) phases in response to global disruptions and regional integration efforts. This study contributes a validated, reproducible baseline map of Scopus-indexed ASEAN digital trade scholarship (2015-2023) that can be extended in subsequent work to assess whether post-2023 developments alter the observed patterns. Using Scopus-indexed literature and bibliometric tools, the analysis reveals that post-2020 publications account for 60% of the corpus (210/350), indicating an accelerated concentration of ASEAN digital trade research during the re-opening and recovery phases of the COVID-19 disruption cycle. Publication dynamics reveal ecosystem mobilization (1.5x post-2020 surge); keyword evolutions signal maturation (governance shift, 3x Cluster 4 density), from e-commerce/MSME to digital trust and regulatory harmonization. The corpus also suggests persistent gaps, including comparatively limited attention to sustainability-linked digital trade themes and to empirical evaluation of policy implementation and effectiveness. The analysis further shows that international organizations (IMF, OECD, UNCTAD, and WTO) are frequently referenced as contextual anchors in the literature’s policy framing. Building on these patterns, this study proposes a conceptual Digital Trade Resilience Index and highlight the value of cross-disciplinary linkages across economics, innovation, governance, and sustainable development to support a more inclusive, secure, and adaptive ASEAN digital trade ecosystem.