Building Resilient SACCOs for the Future: A Global Bibliometric Analysis of Financial Sustainability, Governance, Digital Transformation, and Emerging Research Frontiers

Abstract

Purpose: This paper provides a comprehensive examination of the intellectual framework, publication output, conceptual context, and thematic development in the field of cooperative sustainability studies, focusing specifically on savings and credit cooperatives (SACCOs).  Method: A bibliometric analysis was carried out over 2007-2026, using 4,399 articles published in 1,781 journals from Scopus database. Biblioshiny/Bibliometrix and VOSviewer software have been used for analysis of these articles, including performance metrics, co-citation analysis, bibliographic coupling, keyword co-occurrence, thematic mapping and thematic development. Results: The development of this field of research has been stable and the average annual growth rate makes up 11.94%, while 25.21% of the research is done collaboratively. The journal Sustainability (Switzerland) has the greatest number of publications, while the most cited author is E Ostrom. The co-citation structure is significantly formed by the book Governing the Commons and emphasizes the significance of ideas behind collective action and institutional governance. Sustainable development has been chosen as the focal thematic area and it has links to cooperatives as well as to human dimensions, decision making, resilience, adaptation, governance and leadership. Contribution: Based on the findings from this study, a Five-Phase Framework for Sustainable and Resilient SACCOs is proposed, which involves the integration of strategic sustainability conceptualization, evidence synthesis, multidimensional assessment, governance and resilience, as well as continuous adaptive learning in the sustainable and resilient cooperative organizations.