AN INVESTIGATION OF SPORT MANAGEMENT: A BIBLIOMETRIC ANALYSIS (1979-2022)

Abstract

Sports management has been regarded as a key element in the planning process of education of sports and sports organizations, which have particularly evolved on a macro scale with the developing technology and economic growth. Macro development has also been prevalent in incremental scientific studies on sports education and management areas. In the present study, which employs qualitative research design, 1792 documents embracing more than 40 years on sports management in the databases such as Scopus and Web of Science, were analyzed using the bibliometric analysis technique. The findings, while urging upon the inclusive nature of the research, are a prepotent agent in designating the (a) countries, (b) journals, (c) authors, (d) universities and (e) impact factors studying on sports management. The results have revealed that it is in the first three places in the citation and journal ranking of the "Sport Management Review, European Sport Management Quarterly and Journal of Sport Management" journals, where the studies on sports management are at the highest level in 2021 are evaluated. It is clear that the rate of scientific production and citation numbers of America, Australia and United Kingdom is in parallel with the first three journals. While it is obvious that the most cited work belongs to "Funk and James (2001)" in the "Sport Management Review" journal, it proves that the journal order, citation rates, author order and scientific production are parallel for all variables.