Analyzing the state-of-the-art of scientific publications on identity management: is there an economic perspective?

Although sophisticated identity management (IdM) technologies have been developed for quite a while, they are not as broadly used as could be expected – in the corporate but especially in an end-user context. Some authors have argued that the reason for this lack of diffusion is not to be found in technological or privacy shortcomings. Rather, it is attributed to the disregard of an economic perspective in the research on IdM and the development of IdM-technologies. This argument, has so far not been scrutinized in a systematic way. Therefore, this article performs a literature analysis of scientific publications to analyze whether there is indeed a lack of publications on IdM that employ an economic perspective. The results of the analysis seem to support the argument that the economic perspective is neglected in the current research on IdM.