Mapping Intellectual Structure of Engineering Management

Using methodologies of mapping of knowledge domains, the authors drew the map of the core research groups of engineering management during 1996-2005 in order to identify the intellectual structure of current research on engineering management. The present study is based on bibliographic data retrieved from the Web of Science. The data contains all types of documents published in IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management during 1996 and 2005. From the map of core research groups, we found that, through 50 years development, four research groups, product innovation management, organizational innovation, managing knowledge for innovation and industrial strategy, and organizational knowledge have become the core research groups of current engineering management. The map of the core research groups of engineering management showed the status and relationship of 52 most cited authors. The present study also showed the most cited papers of the most influential authors of each research group and introduced the main research fields of them, like Cooper RG, Clark KB, Etthe JE, DaftRL, Dorothy Leonard, Porter ME, Williamson OE, and Nonaka I. These authors made great contribution for the development of current engineering management, and the research fields of them deserve the attention of other researchers in the field of engineering management.