Foundations of program management: A bibliometric view

Are programs just scale-ups of projects, or do they represent something unique? Recent articles stress the difference of project and program management, but do neither show consensus nor precise definitions of program management. Our comparative bibliometric study of 517 program articles and 1164 project articles published in the last 21 years in leading scientific business journals identifies similarities and differences in theoretical foundations, indicated by the sources cited, and themes, indicated by the keywords. We show that programs have several theoretical bases, such as organizational theories, strategy, product development, manufacturing and change. Programs take an open system view and seek change in permanent organizations. Projects, in turn, have product development as the dominant theory basis. We elaborate eleven distinctive characteristics of program and project management research. Our study proposes themes upon which future theories and empirical studies of programs can be established.