manage-ment applications with their research interests. There were no occurrences in the areas of EC/CONTRACT/LEGAL and QM/6SIGMA/PI. Occurrences have decreased from the 1990s to the 2000s. It seems that interest in publishing project management related papers has not increased over the last twenty years indicating that SMJ might not be a proper venue to publish papers related to project management.
There was a total of three papers that were published each in the 1960s [73], 1970s [74], and 1980s [75] in Administrative Science Quarterly. Probably this journal is not an appropriate outlet for publishing papers related to project management. Finally, there was only one paper ever published in the Journal of Small Business Management dis-cussing the applications of project management by small business to develop new products and services [76].
4. Project management allied disciplines trend analysis
We also wanted to learn more about trends of allied disciplines that covered PM research and further analyze occurrences of allied disciplines in top management journals using the eight categories discussed earlier. Based on the 537 papers that we investigated, we coded each and every paper in up to three categories. As another example, let us say that there is a paper dealing with ‘‘Information Technology implementation project measuring perfor¬mance using earned value management in an R&D organi¬zation”. Then, we coded the paper as covering IT/IS (IT implementation issues), PERFORMANCE/EVM (project effectiveness measurement using EVM) and TECH/ INNV/NPD/R&D (new product development projects). In other cases, papers were coded for only one or two combined categories. Based on this coding scheme, we identified 980 total occurrences using the eight disciplines/ categories from the 537 papers as shown in Table 1.
Overall, more papers are being published in different disciplines starting from the 1980s (19%), 1990s (30%) and continuing in the 2000s (31%) showing a greater interest in PM research in allied disciplines. STRATEGY/PPM (30%) and OR/DS/OM/SCM (23%) were the two primary disciplines that appeared most among allied disciplines. In particular, STRATEGY/PPM category was always the most popular subject starting from the 1970s with a strong and continued upward trend in research interest from the 1950s. Scholars and practitioners have keen interest in applying PM principles, tools, techniques, and concepts to organize and manage resources for maximizing profit, minimizing cost, and supporting the overall strategy of the organization. Regarding OR/DS/OM/SCM, it is only natural that OR/DS/OM/SCM was ranked highly (second) since PM has strong roots in OR/DS/OM/SCM. The appearance and research interest in OR/DS/OM/SCM seem to be slowing down in the 2000s and recently flattened out. STRATEGY/PPM, TECH/INNOV/NPD/R&D, IT/ IS, and PERFORMANCE/EVM are the four disciplines that show large increases in occurrences in publications