A Bibliometric Analysis of Product Innovation: Product Design, Market and Consumer Behavior

Product innovation is widely recognized as a pivotal driver of firm competitiveness and long-term value creation. Nevertheless, its market success remains highly uncertain due to the involvement of multiple stakeholders throughout the innovation value chain. While existing scholarship has predominantly analyzed product innovation through isolated disciplinary perspectives, such an approach limits comprehensive understanding of how strategic, marketing, and consumer-level mechanisms interact and jointly influence innovation outcomes. To elucidate the operational mechanisms of innovation within an interdisciplinary context, this study undertakes a mixed-methods analysis (integrating qualitative and quantitative approaches) of 800 scholarly articles published in the Web of Science Core Collection spanning the period from 1992 to 2024. By integrating four analytical tools, CiteSpace, VOSviewer, Bibliometrix and IBM SPSS Statistics, we systematically mapped the intellectual structure, thematic trajectories and collaborative networks of product innovation research across the domains of product strategy, marketing and consumer behavior. Based on the research results, we put forward an integrated three-tiered framework (enterprise strategy-marketing coordination -consumer behavior) to clarify how innovative value is created, disseminated and realized in the market. The research findings reveal a notable paradigm shift in innovation, from technology-driven orientation toward user-centered, digitally enabled and sustainability-focused paradigm. Scholars are placing growing emphasis on the value of consumers in co-creation and creative engagement in innovation processes. This paper provides a theoretical perspective of cross-level value integration for the first time in the field of innovation, while also offering systematic path recommendations for product innovation, innovation management practices, and directions for future scholarly research.