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The way COVID-19 impacted every aspect of human life around the world, is now considered more disastrous than the World War II. Both the policy and academic researchers have been contributing to assess its severity and impact on businesses and economies while examining the foci of business researchers in this era of contagion. In this assessment, we have applied the approaches of bibliometric and content analysis on 403 qualified studies, drawn from the Scopus database. The period of data ranges from 2003 to June 2020. We identified 11 different research streams including tourism, supply chain besides economic and finance-related research. We highlighted the sub-streams and main concerns raised in the published literature. The findings of this research indicate that COVID will force the policy makers to come up with strategy and changes in various business fields. The implications of the study may be important for business managers to chalk out a proactive approach for business handling during and post-COVID eras.

Publishing in the prestigious research avenues is considerable important for the researchers and academicians. However, selecting the right journal to suit the research topic and quality of research is a tiresome task. Studying the nature of the research published in differently ranked journals is important to understand the difference of research and publication trends. This study aims to examine a differences and similarities of the research published in the Q1 and Q4 ranked Library and Information Science (LIS). A total 21,437 documents were selected from WoS Q1 and Q4 category LIS journals for this study. Then the data of Q1 and Q4 journals was separately accessed, analyzed and compared with different tool including MS Access, MS Excel, Gaphi, Biblioshiny, and VOS Viewer software. We found significant differences in the LIS research themes and publication trends between the Q1 and Q4 category publications. The Q1 journals are publishing on emerging bibliometrics, technology related topics like social media, information systems, machine learning etc., innovating practices and research. While, Q4 journals mostly publish about academic libraries, information seeking, literacy and behavioral research. Topical evaluation reveled citation analysis, bibliometrics, social media, innovation and collaboration as emerging topics in both Q1 and Q4 category journals but differ in terms of total publications order. This is the first study to the best knowledge or understanding by the authors to examining the similarities and differences in a Q1 and Q4 ranked LIS journals related to the research trends, publishing institution, individuals, countries, etc. It also identifies and compares the Q1 and Q4 journal's major research topics, topical evolution over years, most citied research themes that can also be considered a novel contribution to the field. This study provides a holistic overview of topical evolution and emerging research foci for the LIS researchers, especially early career researchers, academicians, and research students to make right decisions for research topic, publication avenues, collaborators, and potential areas of interest to attract research grants. This method of comparing category-based research trends can assist library practitioners working for research support and information literacy to assist their users in the selection of topics for potential publications and publication avenues to create impact.