Sustainable Project Governance: Scientometric Analysis and Emerging Trends

Abstract

Though a relatively large number of studies on sustainable project governance (SPG) have been undertaken, the existing corpus of literature is bereft of a comprehensive review paper that scientometrically analyses the materials published hitherto and puts forward the research gaps and the corresponding future works to be conducted. To fill this knowledge gap, this study undertakes a bibliometric review and scientometric analysis by meticulously delving into the relevant body of knowledge of sustainable governance reported in different databases. From the results obtained using CiteSpace software, the following conclusions can be drawn: (1) most of the keywords with high centrality rankings are related to the environment, (2) “participation” and “land use” are the most important clusters, (3) the United Kingdom and the United States are by far the most advanced countries in the concerned field, (4) the hot topics within the defined clusters are “industry”, “transition management”, “property rights”, and “natural resources”, and (5) the two salient keywords are “public participation” and “insight”. The attained findings lay out a solid foundation for researchers and practitioners towards fostering the area of SPG, by focusing on land use, community participation, politics, climate change, and the water–energy–food nexus and finding ways to tackle the elaborated shortcomings.