Comparative study of academic research on project management in Iran and the World with text mining approach and TF–IDF method

Abstract

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to compare the trend of academic project management research in Iran and the World in five-year periods with a text mining approach and TF–IDF method.Design/methodology/approachThe research population consists of 1205 theses presented between 2000 and 2019 in Iranian universities. The central library website of the mentioned universities was used for data collection, and the text mining approach with the TF–IDF method was used for data analysis.FindingsThe remarkable results of this study include: Concrete structures are the most frequent among structural systems, Risk Management is the most frequent among PMBOK Knowledge Areas, Design-build (DB) system is the most frequent among Project Delivery Systems, Engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) is the most frequent among DB Project Delivery Systems, Financial Management is the most frequent among specialized construction knowledge areas, Soft Skills is the most frequent among Global Trends, Contracting Companies is the most frequent among Project Parties, Construction Projects is the most frequent among Project Areas, Power Plant and Refinery is the most frequent among Project Subjects, Optimization is the most frequent among Problem-Solving Approaches, Fuzzy Logic is the most frequent among Novel Algorithms and Motivation is the most frequent among Soft Skills.Originality/valueThe innovative aspect of this research is that for the first time, text mining has been used to analyze academic research on project and construction management, and also for the first time, academic research on construction industry in Iran has been compared with global research.