Beyond Theory: Leveraging Business Intelligence Tools to Uncover Actionable Pathways for Mapping the Intention–Behavior Gap in Behavioral Sciences

Abstract

Behavioral science confronts the issue of how people’s behaviors differ from what they intend to do. However, current models, such as the theory of planned behavior, are insufficient to account for contextual influences and interdisciplinary effects, especially in the case of modern social phenomena. The majority of studies concentrate on single domains (e.g., health and consumer behavior) and employ manual coding schemes, overlooking essential thematic relationships. This research highlights the necessity for integrative frameworks that attempt to analyze why intentions fail to be realized in complex settings such as climate change and digitalization. The primary objectives of this research are to identify and operate dominant and emerging thematic trends in intention–behavior literature in a time series from 1979 to 2025 and to analyze and investigate the effects of publication index status and citation patterns on scholarly impact. This study uses structural topic modeling (STM) alongside bibliometric analyses to identify themes and correlations in intention–behavior research. STM employs generalized linear models to include document-level metadata, allowing for the discovery of related topics and the key factors influencing the development of the literature. Data collection was initially performed on February 20, 2025, through the Web of Science database, using studies that were identified following PRISMA guidelines, reviewed, and considered relevant. The initial records numbered 5350. Significant thematic trends were found to define, and key psychological mechanisms to explain the intention–behavior gap were identified. The study also found that the determinants of publication index status and citation trends play important roles in establishing the discipline’s fate and the impact of intention–behavior literature. Based on these findings, the study highlights how strong thematic links in intention–behavior research can inform cross-domain interventions—such as integrating physical activity and organic food campaigns or leveraging sustainable tourism to promote ethical consumption—by targeting shared psychological drivers like health identity and self-image. In future research, the intention–behavior gap should be investigated across different disciplines and contexts and with longitudinal and experimental designs to take advantage of the psychological and contextual factors that affect behavior.