Research on management theory: A development review and bibliometric analysis

Abstract

While the literature on management theory has been growing in recent years, there are no publications regarding the evolution and mapping of this scientific field. This study dwells on the issues related to management theories in the context of today’s research by identifying the most important lines of research, researchers, and the concentration of research. To explore the trends in the development of management theory, this study used bibliometric analysis. The search in the Web of Science database provided 5,825 documents (including articles, books, reviews, etc.). Methods of trend analysis, clusterization, and comparative analysis were used. The results show that a new direction of responsible management research is being formed – the organization’s operations and objectives must be balanced, and their implementation must be responsible. This study enriches management literature by providing new ideas related to future research tendencies. Moreover, it fleshes out the direction for developing management theory and outlines the most-cited works and authors, the research concentration in different countries, and leading journals. For scholars and practitioners, such structured data are an important source of relevant information in published papers and allows for the definition of research guidelines.