CUSTOMER ENGAGEMENT FOR SUSTAINABLE ENTREPRENEURSHIP: DRIVING LONG-TERM SME GROWTH IN EMERGING ASIAN ECONOMIES

Increasingly volatile and digitalized markets, Customer Engagement (CE) has emerged not merely as a marketing approach but as a strategic capability that enables sustainable entrepreneurship, long-term value creation, and business resilience. This relevance is particularly pronounced for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and startups operating in emerging Asian economies, where sustained customer relationships, trust, and innovation capacity determine survival and growth. Despite the growing importance of CE, a comprehensive synthesis of its intellectual structure and sustainability-oriented implications remains limited. This study addresses this gap by systematically mapping the CE research landscape.The study employs bibliometric and co-word analyses of 803 CE-related articles retrieved from the Dimensions database, covering the period from 2003 to July 2023, using the VOSviewer tool. Bibliometric performance, co-citation patterns, and keyword co-occurrence networks are analyzed to uncover influential contributors and dominant research themes.The results reveal a substantial and sustained growth in CE research, with emerging themes emphasizing digital engagement, customer trust, value co-creation, and experiential interactions. These themes underscore CE’s role in fostering innovation, enhancing customer retention, and building organizational resilience critical drivers of sustainable SME growth in emerging Asian contexts.The findings provide actionable insights for entrepreneurs, SME managers, and policymakers by demonstrating how CE can be leveraged as a long-term strategic resource to support sustainable business success in dynamic Asian markets.This study advances CE scholarship by explicitly linking bibliometric evidence to sustainable entrepreneurship and SME growth in emerging Asian economies.