Scientometric Review of Articles Published in ASCE&#x2019;s <i>Journal of Construction Engineering and Management</i> from 2000 to 2018

Abstract

This study aims to address research questions related to the evolution of academic research in the field of construction engineering and management (CEM): (1)&nbsp;what are the mainstream research topics since 2000? (2)&nbsp;what are the emerging topics or techniques in CEM within the recent decades? and (3)&nbsp;what are potential CEM research areas in the near future? A scientometric analysis was conducted to review articles published in Journal of Construction Engineering and Management since 2000, follow by a qualitative discussion. This study revealed that project performance indicator–related topics (e.g.,&nbsp;cost, scheduling, safety, productivity, and risk management) have been the ongoing mainstream issues over the last decades. Labor and personnel issues gained even more research attention in the last 10&nbsp;years. Information and communication technologies [e.g.,&nbsp;building information modeling (BIM)] applied in CEM has been gaining the momentum since 2009. A variety of quantitative methods have gained popularity in the CEM discipline, such as algorithms, statistics, fuzzy sets, and neural networks. The follow-up qualitative analysis led to the contributions of this review-based study in terms that (1)&nbsp;it provided an overview of the research topics in CEM since 2000 through a text-mining approach; and (2)&nbsp;it offered insights into emerging and near-future research areas, including BIM and data analytics applied in various construction issues (e.g.,&nbsp;safety), as well as integrations of research themes (e.g.,&nbsp;risk assessment in newly emerging project delivery methods).