Electronic Customer Relationship Management Adoption: Exploring Its Evolution Through Bibliometric Analysis and Topic Modeling

Electronic Customer Relationship Management (E-CRM) systems are a foundational strategic tool for organizations aiming to enhance customer engagement and competitive advantage in digital environments. Despite the widespread implementation of E-CRM, user adoption remains the primary challenge. This study employs a comprehensive Bibliometric Analysis and Topic Modeling approach on a corpus of 137 articles from the Web of Science and Scopus databases (2004–2025), to systematically map the field’s intellectual structure and evolution. The findings confirm E-CRM adoption as a mature and active field, conceptually bifurcated between the Technology Acceptance Paradigm and the Organizational Performance Paradigm. However, the structure is highly fragmented due to domestically oriented collaboration and exhibits a significant theoretical gap—the absence of integrated models that explicitly link technology acceptance factors to tangible commercial outcomes, such as Return on Investment (ROI). Future research must prioritize developing integrated value chain models and conceptualize Third-Generation E-CRM technologies (e.g., AI and automation) within existing adoption frameworks. This research provides essential, data-driven insights for scholars and practitioners seeking to enhance digital adoption strategies.