Construction Engineering and Management: Review of Research from Australia-Based Academics

Abstract

Construction Engineering and Management (CEM) is a critically important discipline that provides a scientific and management-oriented perspective for building and construction projects. Owing to the contingent nature of this industry, CEM research is highly context-specific and is governed by socio-economic needs, environmental challenges, and industry-specific issues. Australia is home to several universities engaged in CEM-related research and training. In terms of the CEM research volume, Australia occupies fourth place, globally. Considering the importance of Australia-based CEM research, the aim of this study was to investigate how CEM research in Australia has developed temporally and across different institutions, how research collaborations in this area materialized, and which topics and research domains are typically being explored. Accordingly, this study conducted a systematic review of 4318 publications from 158 Australia-based CEM academics, primarily based in eight Australian universities. Based on Scientometric and critical review techniques, this study provides insights into research topics, research growth, publication volume, and collaboration in the CEM research discipline in Australia. Similar to global CEM research, Australia-based CEM research places a high emphasis on topics such as risk, sustainability, decision-making, cost, design, and BIM. However, unlike global research trends, Australia-based CEM research places a much higher emphasis on safety and stakeholder management. Australian institutions have high collaboration among themselves and with Chinese and Hong Kong-based institutions. Recommendations for research development in Australia are provided to facilitate a discussion on how Australian institutions can set the future agenda for CEM research.

1. Introduction

Construction Engineering and Management (CEM) is an internationally recognized research field that enjoys support from a strong and growing community of researchers, scholars, and practitioners [1,2]. In the last few decades, Construction Engineering and Management has developed into an independent discipline that addresses the challenges and needs of increasingly complex construction projects [3,4]. Part science and part art, this discipline has its roots across civil engineering, as well as social sciences and economics. It focuses on the execution of engineering and architectural design projects covering the management of built assets (infrastructure and buildings), from their design and construction to their operation and maintenance [5,6]. There are numerous specialist university-degree courses being offered to instill the knowledge of CEM into built-environment professionals. Universities are also engaged in research to inform management practices in construction [7].

Research has a significant role in the activities of those engaged in higher education and has a major influence on the structure and content of higher education courses. In turn, higher education has a significant influence on the constitution of professions, as well as professional values [8]. Fundamental developments in theoretical knowledge which eventually influence the practice and development of professions are first reported in relevant journals. The analysis of the research across these journals can help map a knowledge area. Conducting location- or region-specific reviews of a knowledge area can help us understand how the institutional efforts across a region help shape the body of knowledge [9]. In this study, we reviewed and analyzed the CEM research conducted in Australia in relation to global perspective, which should help map the efforts of Australian institutions towards the development of knowledge in this area both in Australia and globally.

Construction is the third-largest industry in Australia, in terms of the number of people it employs and its share in national GDP (Gross Domestic Product). As of November 2023, over 1.34 million people were employed in the construction sector in Australia [10]. The Australian construction industry generates over AUD 360 billion in revenue, producing around 9% of Australia’s GDP. The value of the construction activity in Australia in the 2019 financial year stood at AUD 212.85 billion, of which the total value of private-sector construction work done across Australia amounted to approximately AUD 109.7 billion [11]. The growing construction industry has a need for Construction Engineering and Management research [1]. Research and development in the construction sector are needed to enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of construction activities in the local Australian context, while increasing the competitiveness of local Australian industry in the global market. Owing to the increasing project complexity, multifaceted client needs, and competing project constraints, the society is in dire need of this discipline [4]. Research in this discipline has the capacity to deal with the socio-economic and environmental challenges of construction projects, both locally and globally.

For the last two decades, Australia has been among the top five countries in terms of international student mobility [12]. CEM research activity in Australian institutions is also of critical importance, since Australia hosts a large number of international students, who are most noticeably from Asia (i.e., China, India, Nepal, Malaysia, South Korea, Thailand, and Indonesia) [13], and increasingly from Europe and South America. Many of the international graduates from Australian universities upon returning to their home countries take leadership and management roles in relevant organizations [14], including construction-related businesses. The CEM-related research conducted in Australian institutions, therefore, has not only a direct effect on the local construction sector but also indirectly affects the global construction sector. Owing to the cross-border impact-ability of research, Australian institutions can impact industry practices across multiple regions. Nevertheless, for research to be relevant locally and internationally, there is a need for greater collaboration between the local and international institutions [15]. This poses the question of how the Australian institutions are collaborating with their counterparts overseas, and what are the key areas in which CEM-related research is being conducted by Australian academics.

Some CEM-related review studies were conducted previously to address broad topics such as construction-management curriculum development [16], the impact of education on construction management [17], and future of construction [18]. Some review studies have also focused on the use of different research methods in construction-management research [19,20,21]. Multiple specialized review studies have been conducted in the domain of construction management, with a focus on specialty areas such as system dynamics applications [22], Artificial Neural Network applications [23], safety management [24,25], labor productivity [26], sustainable and green construction [27,28,29], BIM [30], public housing [31], and critical success factors [32], to name a few. Some review studies in CEM domain have also focused on publications in certain outlets to identify the trends. For instance, Betts and Lansley [33] reviewed studies published in the journal Construction Management and Economics. Bröchner and Björk [34] investigated the preferences of construction management academics towards particular journals of choice. These review studies, with their special focus, add value to knowledge by indicating how CEM research in certain specialized areas has evolved and the trends of research published by some journals. However, owing to the lack of regional focus, the implications of these review studies for the development of CEM research in a specific region are very limited. Some studies have addressed this issue by focusing on regional aspects of the construction industry. For instance, Mushi, Nguluma [35] reviewed green building research conducted in Africa. Also, Ma and Wang [36] conducted a review of research related to building energy in Hong Kong. Regardless of these attempts, there is a lack of region-focused CEM review studies which can provide suggestions for local research being conducted and can help develop policy guidelines. This is a gap that this review study has addressed for Australian context. Understanding the development of CEM research in Australia is critical to see how this research domain has developed in relation to global trends and can therefore support policymaking and future research effort in this area.

Accordingly, the aim of this study was to investigate Australia-based CEM research contributions. By addressing this aim, the study aspired to identify research-related shortcomings and suggest measures for improvement. Based on this, the objectives of this study were (1) to compare Australia-based CEM research contributions with the worldwide research in this area; (2) to investigate the temporal trends in CEM research conducted in Australia; (3) to investigate the trends in different topics of CEM research; (4) to investigate the contribution of Australia-based CEM academics towards publication volume and their preferences towards different publication outlets; and (5) to investigate collaboration trends of Australian institutions among themselves and with global counterparts for CEM research. To understand how the CEM research in Australia has progressed through the years, a science mapping exercise was conducted. The findings provide valuable insights that policymakers and institutions could use to develop Australian CEM research when allocating and distributing research funds. This could help shape the future of Australian contribution to CEM research, globally. The study is structured such that first the methodology of the review process is explained. This is followed by review findings and suggestions to improve CEM research in Australia.

2. Methodology

Review studies are invaluable tools for both the decision-makers and for the research community. Reviews are used by the researchers to identify, rationalize, and improve hypotheses; recognize and prevent pitfalls of previous studies; estimate sample sizes [37]; assess the degree of agreement regarding the state of the art in the field; and identify challenges and potential prospects [38]. Scientometric reviews are focused on knowledge production, the spatiality of knowledge production, and knowledge relationships between the network of global actors [39,40]. This paper employs Scientometric techniques for science mapping of the literature on the topic of ‘Construction Engineering and Management’ published by Australia-based academics. It also employs critical review techniques to identify the research themes in CEM discipline. These two techniques have previously been used together to conduct highly focused reviews on different aspect of construction management [41,42].

Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis (PRISMA) Statement and its extensions are an evidence-based minimum set of recommendations designed primarily to encourage transparent and complete reporting of Systematic Reviews. The PRISMA Statement is a road map to help authors best describe what research was performed; what was found; and, in the case of a review protocol, what the authors are planning to do [43]. To ensure transparency and a complete reporting of the systematic literature review, this study was guided by the standards of the PRISMA Statement.

2.1. Review Approach

For the Scientometric review, the ‘science mapping’ approach was used in this study. The choice of this method is based on its proven abilities to present systematic patterns in comprehensive bodies of literature [44]. A Scientometric analysis encompasses bibliometric methods, tools, and data used to analyze the literature. The research methodology, based on recommendations by Börner [45], was structured to constitute the following consecutive stages: tool selection, data acquisition, and pre-processing, and subsequently analyzing the data, modelling, visualization, and the communication of findings. In this study, science mapping was performed in two consecutive stages.

The first stage was about creating networks through analysis of the keywords co-occurrence and co-authorship analysis, with the details described in the Appendix A (

Table A2. Detailed description of analysis techniques.

Technique	Tool	Description	Reference
Word Frequency Analysis of Titles and Abstracts	NVIVO	Word Frequency Analysis for abstract sections of the shortlisted studies were conducted. The minimum character length of words in the analysis was set to 1. The maximum number of display words was set to the 1000 most frequent words. The grouping was set to ‘Stemmed words’, so that the analysis would consider terms such as ‘construction’ and ‘constructing’ as same words. The analysis of the titles and abstract section of all the studies under review is provided in Figure 4. Similar analysis is also conducted for titles of studies published in each decade. The outcomes of these analyses responding to each decade is presented in Figure 3.	[66]
Keyword and theme co-occurrence	VOSviewer	‘All keywords’ instead of ‘author keywords’ were used to present a comprehensive visualization of the keywords. Keyword data were first refined to reduce 17842 words to 16680 words. With a minimum of 40 occurrences, 106 keywords met the criteria for inclusion in the network created using VOSviewer. To create themes from keywords, VOSviewer was used to select keywords (n = 331) with at least 20 occurrences in the data. Using OpenRefine application, keywords implying similar meaning were merged together to form themes. As a result of this exercise, 331 keywords were converted into 122 themes.	[50,67]
Direct citation analysis of outlets	VOSviewer	In VOSviewer, data were submitted with ‘citation’ selected as the analysis type and ‘sources’ selected as the unit of analysis. As network development criteria, minimum number of documents from a source was constrained to ‘20’, and the minimum number of citations of a source was adjusted to ‘0’. From the 525 identified sources, 38 met the criteria and were presented in the network.	[50,67]
Co-authorship analysis of documents (Institutions)	VOSviewer	For co-authorship analysis of institutions, the data were fed into VOSviewer, where analysis type was set to ‘co-authorship’, ‘organizations’ as unit of analysis, and ‘fractional counting’ as the counting method. The duplicate entries of organizations in the network were eliminated, which reduced the number of organizations to 3501, of which only 57 met the criteria of the minimum publications by an organization. This was a minimum of 7 documents and 0 citations for an organization.	[50,67]
Co-authorship analysis of documents (Countries)	VOSviewer	For co-authorship analysis of countries, the data were fed into VOSviewer, where analysis type was set to “co-authorship”, “countries” as unit of analysis, and “fractional counting” as the counting method. Cleaning of the data shortlisted the number of countries to 78, of which only 41 met the criteria of the minimum publications by a country. This was a minimum of 10 documents affiliated with a country.	[50,67]

). Based on the objectives of this review, these techniques were considered the most effective. A widespread acceptance and recommendation for the use of these techniques in studies of a similar nature [46,47,48] further justify their use in this review. In the second stage, the network analysis generated maps to present useful measures of the network. These measures presented the intellectual, conceptual, and social evolution of the research in the subject area, highlighting trends, patterns, outliers, and seasonality [44].

The tools available for Scientometric analysis have varying strengths and capabilities; thus, a detailed analysis of a field requires the use of multiple tools for different analysis [44]. To select relevant tools for this study, the strengths and limitations of popular Scientometric software were analyzed, leading to the selection of VOSviewer tool (version 1.6.17), which offers the basic functionality needed for visualizing Scientometric networks [49,50]. For refining the bibliographic data and to group the keywords into themes, OpenRefine, an open-source desktop application for data cleanup and transformation [51], was employed. To conduct a word-cloud analysis, NVIVO, a qualitative data analysis computer software package [52], was used. A detailed description of the use of these tools is provided in Appendix A Table A2.

2.2. Selection of Studies for Review

A search strategy can be transparent and repeatable if the sampling methodology is well defined [53]. Accordingly, a rigorous approach of searching and selecting relevant publications is implemented in this review study (see Figure 1) which fulfills the requirements of the PRISMA statement. To ensure that the review encompasses studies on CEM regardless of the year of publication, the publication year of studies is not considered a filtration criterion. This resulted in the identification of a large number of studies, with the first relevant study coming from 1983.

Scopus was used as the preferred citation database for this review, owing to its relatively wider coverage, its rapid indexing process, and its access to recent publications, in comparison to other databases [54]. To reduce the likelihood of missing publications not listed in Scopus, Web of Science (WoS) was also used. As shown in Figure 1, the final lists of filtered publications from Scopus and Web of Science include 4218 and 2200 articles, respectively. Other than 100 publications unique to Web of Science, all the rest of identified articles are also identified by Scopus. The consolidation of the articles from the two databases resulted in an overall number of 4318 publications which were finally considered for review.

The most critical aspect of this review study is to identify Australia-based CEM publications. The selection of the optimal search approach was based on several hit and trial iterations. Multiple approaches of search criteria analyzed for this review study are described in Appendix A 

Table A1. Selection strategies for searching relevant CEM publications.

	Selection Strategy	Limitations Regarding the Use of Selection Criteria
1	Shortlisting CEM-related journals and identifying Australia-based CEM publications from there	Such a search criterion is based on the assumption that CEM research is only published in particular CEM research journals. Since CEM research is informed by social, economic, and environmental knowledge areas, this research is also published in non-CEM or non-project management journals. This search strategy is deemed unfit for this review study.
2	Shortlisting CEM-related departments in Australian institutes and identifying CEM publications from there	Publications on a database can be classified by universities and the faculties/schools within those universities. Typically, a CEM department is one among multiple departments in a faculty/school. Hence, the use of this approach may result in the selection of built environment-related publications which may lie within or beyond the CEM discipline. Also, the use of this search approach assumes that (1) all academics within CEM department are CEM professionals and also (2) anyone outside CEM department (for instance, related to architecture department) is not a CEM professional. The review of Australian universities showed that there are several instances when both of these assumptions are incorrect. This search strategy is deemed unfit for this review study.
3	Shortlisting CEM-related keywords and identifying Australia-based CEM publications from there	Such a search assumes that the boundaries of CEM discipline are well-defined and that the topics of CEM research are well-established. In reality, the boundaries of the CEM discipline are continuously changing depending on the directions in which CEM professionals conduct their research. This search strategy is deemed unfit for this review study.
4	Shortlisting CEM-related academics from Australian institutes and considering their publications	Such a search is based on the assumption that all the research authored and co-authored by CEM professionals is within the domain of CEM discipline and not in the domain of allied disciplines. Several publications by CEM professionals contradict this assumption. This search strategy is deemed unfit for this review study.
5	Identifying publications generally related to CEM discipline and then shortlisting publications from eminent Australian CEM academics	This is a hybrid search strategy which makes use of both strategies 3 and 4. First, Australia-based CEM publications are identified by using CEM-related keywords. Then, Australia-based CEM academics with 6 or more publications in this discipline are identified. Publications identified from the keyword search are passed through the filter of selected Australian academics, resulting in the final list of publications for review. This search strategy is deemed suitable for this review study.

. To mitigate the weaknesses of search strategies indicated in the Appendix A (Table A1), a hybrid approach is employed in this paper. This approach comprises two steps: first, the CEM academics from Australian institutes are identified, and subsequently, the CEM specific publications of these academics are identified.

The identification of Australia-based CEM academics is primarily based on database search and then a review of the faculty websites of Australian universities. It is ensured that the search accounts for imminent CEM academics. To shortlist the academics, a Scopus database operation was conducted based on which the number of publications of academics was identified that included the terms ‘construction’ and ‘management’ in title, keywords, or abstract. Authors (n = 158) with at least 6 relevant studies (i.e., containing the above-mentioned keywords) were selected. To ensure that this database search does not miss imminent CEM academics from Australia, the database results were reviewed alongside the faculty websites of Australian universities. Only the authors with expertise in CEM discipline were selected after a stringent round of scrutiny. There were multiple cases where the academics under review had their key expertise in allied disciplines (such as architecture, architectural engineering, and environmental management), yet also had authored publications in CEM domain. Since publications from these academics can significantly skew the review findings, those academics were not considered to meet the inclusion criteria.

The second step of this hybrid approach is to ensure that only CEM-related publications of the shortlisted academics are considered for final review and the research of 158 shortlisted academics in other disciplines is not considered for review. For this purpose, keywords associated with the concept of CEM were used. Keywords were selected using both the inductive and deductive reasoning approaches. A preliminary literature review of over 100 publications was conducted to develop a list of keywords using inductive reasoning. Subsequently, a search on Scopus and Web of Science was conducted using selected keywords, such as ‘construction’, ‘building’, ‘infrastructure’, ‘material’, ‘project’, and ‘management’. The search was limited to selected 158 academics, relevant subject areas, and Australian institutions. The search conducted without considering the preselected 158 academics resulted in 115,500 and 50,050 journal articles in Scopus and Web of Science, respectively. Upon limiting the search to handpicked 158 academics, 4218 and 2200 journal articles were shortlisted from Scopus and Web of Science, respectively. A majority of the articles occurring in Web of Science database were also indexed in Scopus. Upon adding the shortlisted articles from two databases and removing the duplicates, 4318 relevant publications were identified, and the review presented in this paper is based on those publications only. These publications only represent journal research articles and do not include books, conference proceedings, and review articles. It is important to indicate that CEM research in Australia is not limited to 4318 publications; however, the selected publications are highly representative of the CEM research trends in Australia.

To provide a comparison of CEM studies in Australia with the worldwide trends, the CEM studies published worldwide in relevant journals were identified. For this purpose, a separate search was conducted. The first search cycle conducted by using only relevant keywords and by filtering results to journal articles and CEM-related study disciplines produced 3,748,626 results. These results included a mix of articles, among which a majority used CEM-related keywords but were not within the CEM domain. To improve the search outcomes, a second cycle of search was conducted in which the outcomes were limited to CEM-relevant journals, hence reducing the number of results to 153,200 articles. However, for analyzing the detailed regional trends in CEM research output, the number of search results needed to be reduced to a small yet representative set of studies. Using the sorting operation available in Scopus, the articles were arranged in the order of their ‘Relevance’, hence, the articles with most frequent occurrences of the CEM-related keywords appeared earlier in the list and vice versa. Assuming that the articles on the top of the list were best representation of the CEM research trends, the top 20,000 studies in the list were selected and analyzed for regional affiliation and research topic occurrence. It needs to be reiterated that only the CEM research conducted in Australia is the focus of this review, and the use of global trends in CEM research is only for the purpose of comparison.

2.3. Measures of Publication Volume and Citations

To analyze the CEM publication volume from Australian institutions, the key parameter used in this study is the number of publications, which is a widely accepted measure for such an assessment [55]. Also, the number of citations is used as a measure of the prominence of research topics, journals, and institutions. Some earlier studies have considered the number of citations as a measure of research impact [56,57]. However, there is growing discussion among the scientific community that citation analysis alone may not determine research impact [58]. Accordingly, this study uses the number of citations to determine prominence, instead of implying impact. Impact analysis is beyond the scope of this study.

While these measures (i.e., publication volume and number of citations) are used for science mapping exercise, the authors acknowledge that these measures may not always equate to research performance. An academic or an institution may have a low number of CEM publications but all or most of those publications may entail breakthrough findings. Similarly, a CEM publication may share highly insightful findings; however, it may have attracted a smaller number of citations, as it might have ventured a less-followed topic, or it may have been published in a less-followed journal. Further details regarding these limitations are provided in the Conclusion section.

3. Review Results

To fulfil the study aim, this section provides a comparison of Australia-based CEM research with worldwide research in this area; provides a detailed account of CEM research trends on a temporal scale; and presents findings from analysis related to keywords’ co-occurrence, and authorship and co-authorship of documents.

3.1. Global CEM Research and the Status of Australia-Based CEM Research

Before providing an in-depth analysis of the collaborative aspect of CEM research in Australia, it is necessary to highlight the global stature of Australia in this research area. Accordingly, this section addresses the first objective of this study, which was to compare Australia-based CEM research contributions with the worldwide research in this area.

The analysis of worldwide publications on CEM discipline has indicated that Australia has an overall contribution of 6% in the CEM research conducted globally (see Figure 2). In terms of publication volume in CEM, Australia can be ranked fourth, with a performance very close to Canada. Australia’s significant contribution to volume of research in CEM discipline signifies the timeliness and importance of this review study.

The frequency analysis of keyword occurrence in Australian and global CEM research is conducted to identify the relative difference in research focus. For instance, in

Table 1. Ranking of CEM topics of research in Australia and globally.

Topic	Ranks
	Australia	Worldwide
Project and Construction Management	1	1
Risks and risk management	2	9
Sustainable development	3	6
Decision analysis and decision-making	4	12
Safety	5	53
Costs	6	8
Architectural design	7	3
Contractors	8	15
Structural design	9	14
Accidents and accident prevention	10	100
BIM	11	5
Life cycle	12	10
Economics	13	37
Energy use and energy efficiency	14	25
Information Management and Information theory	15	7
Human resource management	16	16
Infrastructure	17	2
Environmental impacts and management	18	13
Waste	19	11
Supply chain	20	17
Stakeholder	21	71
Housing	22	18
Investments	23	24
Productivity	24	19
Building Materials and Material Management	NA	4

Notes: Ranks of CEM topics decided based on the percentage of publications using keywords related to the topics; Dark shaded cells in the Table indicate higher ranks of CEM topics and vice versa; NA = topic not among the top 100; low-ranking number implies higher consideration of a topic in Australia or worldwide and vice versa.

, ‘safety’ is a topic. There are many keywords associated with this topic such as ‘safe site’ and ‘safe construction’. Each such keyword originates from a publication being reviewed. The cumulative frequency count of these keywords indicates how high or how low is the popularity of a research topic. Upon conducting frequency counts of all the topic titles and therefore all associated keywords, a list of topics sorted with respect to frequency count is developed. Topics on top of the list with highest frequency count have highest ranks and vice versa. The analysis indicates that research conducted in Australia has similar focus towards CEM topics as the worldwide research, other than few exceptions (see Table 1). Compared to worldwide volume of research, Australia-based CEM research has much higher focus towards ‘safety’, ‘accidents and accident prevention’, ‘economics’, ‘energy use and energy efficiency’, and ‘stakeholders’. Also, in comparison, Australia-based research has paid relatively less attention towards ‘building materials and material management’, which is a prime topic of CEM research, globally. Moreover, Australia has relatively less focus towards ‘infrastructure’, ‘information management and Information theory’, ‘waste’, and ‘BIM’ when compared to global CEM research. A detailed discussion regarding the CEM research topics is provided in Section 3.3.

3.2. Temporal Trends in CEM Research

This section addresses the second objective of this study, which was to investigate the temporal trends in CEM research conducted in Australia. Based on the shortlisted publications, the first Australia-based CEM study was published in Architectural Science Review in 1983. Figure 3 illustrates the variations in the overall publications in the dataset from 1983 to June 2024 (data cutoff date). While generating the word-cloud charts from the titles of shortlisted publications, the terms such as ‘construction’ and ‘projects’ are eliminated to produce more focused and meaningful infographics. Word clouds in Figure 3 are developed such that keywords with highest occurrence have larger font size for emphasis compared to keywords with relatively lower occurrence/frequency across the reviewed publications. As shown in Figure 3, the findings indicate a developing interest in the subject matter from 1983 onwards. This appears to be reassuring, demonstrating that the CEM field of research is not only active but thriving four decades later. Nonetheless, the issue of ‘research aging’ must be considered. Research ageing refers to the time span following publication during which a research study retains sufficient influence to be cited in subsequent studies. There is evidence that studies lose relevance after around ten years [59]. Considering this, the history in this field spanning four decades has been analyzed through word clouds and keyword maps (see Figure 3). Somewhat discontinuity in research focus is observed between recent studies and those of the early 1980s and 1990s. It can be observed that the studies during the first two decades had more focus towards project scheduling, procurement, cost, quality, conflicts, and structural aspects. From the third decade (i.e., 2001) onwards, risk, BIM, safety, public infrastructure, and sustainable practices, as well as the performance, management, and development of projects, have started to receive increasing attention. A more detailed temporal analysis of research topics is presented in Section 3.3.

The overall research output in CEM, both worldwide and for Australia has been shown in Figure 3. It also indicates the mean value of Australian and Global CEM publications in terms of volume. It can be seen that in terms of the percentage of publications per year, from 1982 to 2013, Australia had a relatively less growth compared to global publication volume. However, from 2013 onwards, in terms of the percentage of publications per year, Australia had a relatively higher growth compared to global publication volume in CEM research.

3.3. Analysis of Research Topics: Findings from Keyword and Theme Co-Occurrence

This section addresses the third objective of this study, which was to investigate the trends in different topics of CEM research. Keywords reflect the core content of published studies and demonstrate the scope of research conducted in a field [60]. A network of connected keywords presents an accurate map of the scientific knowledge generated in terms of the topics addressed, their patterns, relationships, and intellectual organization [50]. Resultantly, an interactive online network of keyword co-occurrence was developed using VOSviewer (see Figure 4).

The weight attributed to a link between two keywords is determined by the number of publications that contain both the keywords [50]. This network was developed based on the closeness and strength of existing links. The total link strength is a standard weight attribute indicating the total strength of the links of an item with other items [61]. Nodes in the keyword network were sized using their total link strength values, with larger nodes indicating higher values and vice versa. The use of the total link strength value in sizing the nodes ensured that the size of keyword nodes in the network reflected their influence on each other. The ranking of the main research areas, and their relatedness as indicated in the map, reveal many interesting findings, reflecting problems and gaps in Australia-based CEM research.

To provide more meaningful analysis, using critical review techniques, keywords with similar connotations have been merged into topics. Some of the highly frequent keywords such as ‘construction industry’ and ‘article’ are eliminated when defining topics since they provide no useful information regarding the CEM research. Appendix A (see

Table A3. Replacement of keywords by themes.

Theme	Keywords
Accidents	Accident prevention; occupational accident; accidents
Algorithm	Genetic algorithms; algorithm
Artificial intelligence	Machine learning; artificial intelligence
BIM	Building information modelling; BIM
Buildings	Building projects; green building projects; intelligent buildings; office buildings; residential buildings; tall buildings; buildings
Carbon emissions	Carbon; carbon dioxide; carbon emissions
Case study	Case-studies; case study
Competition	Competitive advantage; competition
Construction	Building construction; construction process; construction and demolition; construction sector; construction work; construction
Construction companies	Construction firms; construction organizations; construction companies
Construction industry	Chinese construction industry; construction industry
Construction management	Construction project management; construction management
Construction material	Aggregates; cement; concrete; concrete aggregates; concrete construction; fly ash; recycled aggregate; reinforced concrete; timber; construction material
Construction material properties	Compressive strength; stiffness; tensile strength; construction material properties
Cost	Budget control; costs; cost accounting; cost analysis; cost effectiveness; cost estimating; cost overruns; cost-benefit analysis; cost
Decision-making	Decision support system; decision theory; decision-making
Design	Architectural design; computer aided design; design/methodology/approach; structural design; design
Developing world	Developing countries; developing world
Disaster	Disaster management; disaster
Economics	Economic analysis; economic and social effects; economic development; industrial economics; economics
Empirical study	Empirical analysis; empirical studies; empirical study
Energy	Energy conservation; energy efficiency; energy utilization; energy
Environmental impacts, protection, and management	Environmental impact assessment; environmental management; environmental protection; environmental impacts; environmental impacts, protection, and management
Facilities management	Asset management; facilities management
Factor analysis	Exploratory factor analysis (EFA); factor analysis
Health and safety	Construction safety; health; health and safety; occupational safety; occupational health and safety; safety; safety climate; safety engineering; safety factor; safety management; safety performance; health and safety
Humans	Human; humans
Infrastructure	Bridge; infrastructure development; infrastructure projects; infrastructure
Knowledge and knowledge management	Knowledge; knowledge management; knowledge and knowledge management
Labor and personnel issues	Labor productivity; personnel issues; personnel training; labor and personnel issues
Learning	Learning systems; learning
Life cycle	Life cycle analysis; life cycle
Management	Management practice; management
Managers	Project managers; managers
Mathematical models	Sensitivity analysis; Bayesian network; least squares approximations; modelling; models; multivariant analysis; numerical model; partial least square (pls); probability; structural equation modeling; mathematical models
Off-site/prefabricated construction	Off-site construction; prefabricated construction; prefabrication; off-site/prefabricated construction
Performance measurement	Performance assessment; performance measurement
Personnel	Supervisory personnel; personnel
Procurement	Bidding; tendering; procurement
Project performance	Performance; project performance
Project success	Critical success factors; project success
Quality management	Quality control; total quality management; quality management
Questionnaire survey	Questionnaire; survey; questionnaire survey
Region of Study	Asia; Australasia; Australia; China; Ghana; Hong Kong; Hong-Kong; Malaysia; Queensland; Singapore; south Africa; United Kingdom; region of study
Research	Research work; research
Risk	Health risks; occupational risks; risk allocation; risk
	Risk analysis; risk assessment; risk perception; risk factors; risk management; risks;
Social network	Social network analysis; social networking (online); social network
Strategy	Strategic approach; strategic planning; strategy
Sustainability	Sustainable construction; sustainable development; sustainability
Uncertainty	Uncertainty analysis; uncertainty
Urban planning, development, and growth	Urban development; urban growth; urban planning; urban planning, development, and growth
Waste	Construction waste; solid waste; waste disposal; waste management; waste
Water management	Water supply; water management
Work environment	Working conditions; work environment

) indicates the keywords merged into topics. Topics have been further arranged into groups. This classification is mainly based on the categories used by Betts and Lansley [33] in their review of construction management-related research. This resulted in the development of an interactive online network of themes using VOSviewer (see Figure 4). Regarding the key focus of CEM research in Australia, the Keyword co-occurrence and theme co-occurrence analysis support the analysis provided in Section 3.1.

Based on the keyword and theme network analysis, it is found that sustainability, green buildings, life cycle assessment, BIM, energy efficiency, architectural design, structural equation modelling, social network, and construction waste are relatively recent research topics in Australia. For a more detailed temporal understanding of popular research topics explored by Australia-based CEM studies, a matrix was developed (see Figure 5), indicating that for most of the popular research topics there is a gradual increase in attention (in terms of number of published studies) on a timescale. For the topic of environmental impacts, protection, and management, the publication volume peaked in 2020 and 2021; for energy use and efficiency topic, the publication volume peaked in 2018 and 2019; publication-number on the contractor-related issues had multiple peaks during 2009–2010 and in 2017; publication number on BIM topic peaked in 2019; and publication number on investment topic peaked from 2018 to 2019, to name a few.

Research in individual topics does not seem to follow linear trends of growth. For many of the research areas the highest number of related studies are noticed in 2018, 2019, 2020, or 2021. A potential reason for the publication peaks of some topics in 2018, 2019, and 2020 could be that COVID pandemic had a huge impact on Australian institutions. Major Australian cites had the strictest and longest lockdown globally. While studies already completed could be published from 2020 to 2022, it was relatively difficult to start new studies during this period. Many publications during 2020–2022 may be sharing the findings of studies conducted prior to 2020 (i.e., COVID pandemic).

3.4. Contribution of Australia-Based Academics to Publication Volume

This section addresses the fourth objective of this study which is to investigate the contribution of Australia-based CEM academics towards publication volume. To investigate the publication volume authored by academics across Australian institutions, the compliance of identified sample of studies with Pareto principle is verified. The Pareto principle, also known as the 80/20 rule, is a principle which suggests that, in many situations, roughly 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes. In other words, a small percentage of inputs or factors often account for a large percentage of the results or outputs [62]. While in real life situations, outputs and inputs may not always be exactly 80% and 20%, respectively, pareto principle advocates the general idea that a small portion of inputs or efforts often leads to a disproportionately large portion of results or outcomes. This section will discuss how few academics in each Australian institution have contributed to equal or more than 80% CEM publications from the subject institution.

The Pareto analysis (see Figure 6) conducted in this study is based on the approach of exclusion. For instance, author AU-1 (having highest number of publications) from Curtin University-related publications was excluded and the remaining number of publications was identified. Afterwards, AU-2, the author with the second highest number of publications was excluded and the remaining publications were monitored. This process continued until close to 80% of Curtin University publications were eliminated by excluding the top-ranked authors one by one. The same approach was repeated for other institutions.

Among the 468 (12.5%) of Australia-based CEM publications affiliated with Curtin University, AU-1 has a significant contribution, authoring 196 (42%) publications, among which, in 90 (45%) publications, AU-1 is the first author. Unlike author AU-1, the other Curtin University Academics highly active in publication (i.e., AU-2, AU-3, and AU-4) have published very few studies as first authors. As first authors and co-authors, the four listed academics have contributed to about 386 (83%) of CEM publications affiliated to Curtin University. This indicates that, in 83% of CEM publications affiliated with Curtin University, there are four academics involved either as first authors or as co-authors. However, these 83% Curtin University publications are not exclusively authored by the four listed academics. Also, it is important to indicate that, among these 83% publications, not all the studies were based in Curtin University. Some of those originated elsewhere and only had one of the four listed academics as a co-author.

RMIT has 13 academics who contributed to 82% of publication volume, while Curtin University, with a large proportion of publications, has as few as 4 academics who contributed to 83% of the publication volume. Institutions in the decreasing order of the number of authors contributing to the majority of publications (close to 80%) are RMIT (no. of authors = 13), University of Melbourne (n = 11), UNSW (n = 11), University of Technology Sydney (n = 9), Deakin University (n = 9), Western Sydney University (n = 6), Queensland University of Technology (n = 5), and Curtin university (n = 4) (see Figure 6). These trends indicate multiple potential reasons which can be investigated and verified by future inquiries. For instance, in the case of Curtin University, Queensland University of Technology, and Western Sydney University, 80% of the CEM research is authored by six or less academics. This may imply that, in these institutions, graduate-level students may not have many supervisors to select from. It may also mean that some of the top-performing academics in these institutions (i.e., with the highest publication volume) have relatively long tenures of service in these institutions. Opposite scenarios are possible in the case of institutions with a high number of academics contributing to 80% of the CEM research volume, for instance, RMIT, University of Melbourne, and UNSW. In these institutions, CEM-related departments may be more established, and the graduate-level students may have relatively more supervisors to select from. Also, the top-performing academics in these institutions may have joined the institution recently or may have relatively short tenures of service in these institutions. Some or all of these possible scenarios may hold true in the case of Australian institutions; however, they need to be verified by future studies.

3.5. Preferred Outlets

This section addresses the fourth objective of this study, which was to investigate the preferences of Australia-based CEM academics towards different publication outlets. A network of outlets for Australia-based CEM publications is shown in Figure 7. The top eight highly relevant journals publishing the highest proportion of Australian CEM publications (43%) are shown in Figure 8. The global share of CEM studies published in these journals is also provided in the bar chart. The journals publishing most of the Australia-based CEM studies are Engineering, Construction and Architectural Management; Journal of Construction Engineering and Management; and Construction Management and Economics. However, compared to global trends, Australia-based CEM research is published more in Engineering, Construction and Architectural Management and the International Journal of Construction Management. Also, in comparison with global trends, Australia-based CEM research is published less in the Journal of Construction Engineering and Management; Automation in Construction; the International Journal of Project Management; and the Journal of Management in Engineering.

Regarding the choice of journals for Australian CEM research, it is important to understand how the interest of academic community in different journals evolved throughout the years (see Figure 9). From the historic trends, it can be generally stated that the publication activity in the journal Construction Management and Economics has slightly dropped. For the International Journal of Project Management, the publications by Australian CEM academics have significantly dropped, to date; however, for sustainable development-related journals such as the Journal of Cleaner Production and Sustainability, the number of publications by Australian CEM academics has been gradually increasing.

3.6. Scientific Collaboration: Co-Authorship Analysis of Documents

This section addresses the fifth objective of this study, which was to investigate collaboration trends of Australian institutions among themselves and with global counterparts for CEM research. Being aware of the existing networks of scientific collaboration in a field helps access to funding, specialty, and skills; increases productivity; and helps scientists reduce isolated efforts. This ultimately enhances scientific collaboration and contributes to scholarly communications [63]. By examining co-authorship networks, nearly every facet of scientific collaboration networks can be reliably tracked [64]. Co-authorship equates to scientific collaboration, and its lack in a scientific network indicates lower research productivity. Moreover, substantial evidence suggests that collaborative work has a higher likelihood of being published in an outlet with a higher impact and of receiving more citations [64]. With this consideration, the following section analyzes the co-authorship network of Australian universities involved in the subject area.

Active Collaborations among Institutions

The universities which have consistently contributed high number of studies in the subject area for multiple decades include Curtin university (n = 468; 12.5%), University of New South Wales (UNSW) (n = 468; 12.5%), Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT) university (n = 467; 12.5%), Queensland University of Technology (QUT) (n = 465; 12.4%), Deakin university (n = 427; 11%), and Western Sydney university (n = 399; 10.6%). These institutions also contributed larger publication volume in terms of the total number of published studies from 1983 to 2024.

Recognizing the collaboration of institutions highly driven towards the subject area helps the field, especially by informing policy-making for research partnership [63]. For the selected set of studies, the institution collaboration network was created (details in Appendix A Table A2) for all institutions and for Australia-specific institutions. Australian institutions have collaborated among themselves and with overseas institutions and this collaboration has been demonstrated through networks in Figure 10 and Figure 11, respectively. Larger nodes indicate a higher number of publications from an institution, and vice versa. The online interactive maps demonstrate the closeness of institutions in terms of collaboration and their prominence as CEM research hubs. Some of the key collaborations among institutions with high publication volume in Australia are shown in

Table 2. Collaboration-related detailed breakdown of Australian institutions.

Subject Institution	Collaborating Australian Institutions	Collaborating Overseas Institutions
Curtin University (n = 476)	Deakin University (n = 44); Bond University (n = 31)	Kyung Hee University (n = 61); Chongqing University (n = 41); Huazhong University of Science and Technology (n = 34); Hong Kong Polytechnic University (n = 30)
Queensland University of Technology (n = 476)	RMIT University (n = 16); University of South Australia (n = 16)	Hong Kong Polytechnic University (n = 103); University of Hong Kong (n = 47); City University of Hong Kong (n = 36); Tongji University (n = 35)
UNSW Sydney (n = 474)	University of Technology Sydney (n = 41); University of Sydney (n = 30)	Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro (n = 23)
RMIT University (n = 472)	Deakin University (n = 31); University of Melbourne (n = 29)	University of Cape Town (n = 32)
Deakin University (n = 428)	Curtin University (n = 44); RMIT University (n = 31); University of South Australia (n = 30)	Hong Kong Polytechnic University (n = 51); Birmingham City University (n = 35)
Western Sydney University (n = 410)	University of Technology Sydney (n = 32)	Shenzhen University (n = 48); Hong Kong Polytechnic University (n = 35)

Note: n = number of studies.

.

The analysis of the network of Australian institutions indicates that, among the institutions with a high number of affiliated publications, Curtin University and Western Sydney University have high Average Publication Year (APY) values. This means that, for the recent few years, the publication volume of these institutions has dramatically increased.

Among the Australian institutions with a high number of affiliated publications in the CEM discipline, Griffith University is the only institution with a high Average Number of Citations (ANC) value (41.6). Victoria University has a low number of affiliated publications (n = 21); however, it has a high ANC value (55.5). Among overseas universities collaborating with Australian institutions, Kyung Hee University has the highest ANC value (57.7), and the highest collaboration of this institution is with Curtin University. Among overseas universities, the case of Hong Kong Polytechnic University is particularly important to mention, as it has 302 publications jointly authored/affiliated with almost all of the Australian institutions; among which, its most important collaborations are with QUT, Deakin University, Western Sydney University, and Curtin University. Hong Kong Polytechnic University also has a high ANC value of 37.7.

3.7. Scientific Collaboration: Analysis of Field of Study and Funding Sources

The selected set of research studies was analyzed to identify the funding sources. Out of the overall set of 4318 (100%) studies, only 1153 (30%) studies have a clear indication of funding sources. Funding organizations from Australia have relatively less contribution towards the CEM research. There are 487 publications explicitly acknowledging the funding from Chinese institutions. Some of the studies have also been funded by institutions from other regions, such as Hong Kong, the UK, South Korea, and Brazil. To inquire into this further, the fields of study of the publications from Australia-based CEM academics were investigated.

To investigate the field of study in the selected 4318 publications, a content analysis of the keywords, titles, and abstracts of the selected 4318 publications was performed, using NVIVO application. Upon analysis, it was realized that up to 754 (20.1%) studies considered ‘Australia’ as their field of study (see Figure 12). The analysis also showed that 520 (13.8%) publications out of 4318 (100%) reviewed studies have ‘China’ as their field of study, implying that even though the studies were partially or fully affiliated with Australian institutions, they focused on the Chinese construction industry. A detailed analysis of these publications revealed that, in most cases, these studies are led by Chinese academics who collaborated with CEM scholars in Australia. Based on the h-index of the first authors, it is judged that many of the academics in these publications are postgraduate (master’s or PhD) researchers in Chinese universities collaborating with Australian academics, while some of the academics are postgraduate researchers in Australian universities collaborating with Chinese academics. A significant number of these studies are co-authored by well-established CEM academics in China and Australia. This finding is also supported by the high number of studies (n = 487) funded by Chinese funding organizations. This means that Australian CEM academics have a significant collaboration with Chinese academics in conducting research focused on the Chinese construction industry. To some extent, Hong Kong (4.9%) and the UK (2.1%) are also considered as the fields of study. A significant number of studies have simultaneously considered multiple fields of study to compare construction-related issues/problems across multiple regional contexts. Regarding the field of study, a timescale analysis (see Figure 13) indicates that there is a gradual increase in number of studies considering China, the UK, Malaysia, the USA, Iran, New Zealand, and Canada as a field of study. On the contrary, there is a gradual reduction in the number of studies considering Hong Kong as a field of study.

An online interactive network of collaborating countries is mapped to highlight the regions leading the research in the subject area and to present their research collaboration. Basing the node size on the number of publications co-authored by a country, the map of collaborating countries was generated (see Figure 14). The color of the nodes shown in Figure 14 represents the Average Publication Year (APY) of the documents affiliated with different countries. Regarding CEM research, Australia has the largest collaboration with China in terms of the number of joint publications. These findings concord with the analysis presented in Figure 12. Australian and Chinese academics have collaborated on up to 1275 studies, implying that 30% among all selected studies are the result of Australia–China collaboration. Other than this, the most notable collaborations of Australia are with the UK (n = 361; 8.4%), USA (n = 163; 3.7%), Malaysia (n = 104; 2.4%), and Iran (n = 98; 2.3%). Based on the APY values visualized in the map (Figure 14), it can be observed that the collaboration of Australia with China, the UK, the USA, and Singapore is not recent. On the contrary, the collaboration of Australia with Iran, Malaysia, and New Zealand is relatively recent.

4. Discussion and Recommendations

Based on the analysis of the Australia-based CEM research presented in this study, some key points are discussed in this section. Recommendations related to the advancement of CEM research in Australian intuitions are also provided.

Research on topics such as project stakeholders and contractors peaked in 2017 in terms of publication numbers, and afterwards began to decline. In the recent few years, topics such as commerce, information management, and energy use are also in decline, to name a few. Remedy measures need to be taken to ensure that a continuous and unparallel attention is given to CEM research approaches and topics directly related to the triple bottom line, i.e., planet, people, and profit. When compared to worldwide CEM research trends, research conducted in Australia pays relatively less attention towards ‘Building Materials and Material Management’, ‘infrastructure’, ‘Information Management and Information theory’, ‘Waste’, and ‘BIM’ (see Table 1). To align Australian CEM research with global trends, it is important to realign efforts towards some of the trending topics in which regional research is lacking. The top research topics in the Australia CEM field are in the areas of project and construction management, risks and risk management, decision analysis and decision-making, and safety. In relation to global research, Australia-based CEM research is unique in the following areas: ‘safety’, ‘accidents and accident prevention’, ‘economics’, ‘energy use and energy efficiency’, and ‘stakeholders’. The Australian research volume in some of the imminent topics, such as ‘Circular Economy’ and ‘Automation’ is lacking and, therefore, needs special attention.

Appropriate funding support can enable CEM research to meet Australian built-environment priorities. Other than 6% CEM publications acknowledging support from Australian government funding institutions, the rest of publications are silent about Australia-based funding. This issue is particularly pronounced when comparing Australia-based research funding with China-based research funding. While the lack of funding acknowledgement in CEM publications may not be a definite indicator to suggest the lack of funding support, it can be used alongside more in-depth measures to determine the issue of funding availability. For CEM-related research planning in Australia, it is suggested to conduct dedicated in-depth inquiries regarding the availability of research funding and its dissemination among academics.

Other than the Australian collaboration with China, for CEM research, Australia has relatively weak collaboration with the rest of the world and most importantly with the US and the UK, which rank second and third in terms of the number of co-affiliated CEM research publications. The lack of Australian research collaboration in the CEM discipline can be resolved by conducting targeted conferences and initiating joint research programs at the regional level. The USA and EU both boast highly mature construction markets; hence, reinforcing Australian research collaboration across these regions can be invaluable for the Australian construction industry. Dedicated research grants to encourage the partnership of Australian academics with their overseas counterparts can facilitate collaboration. Also, student exchange programs between Australian and overseas universities based on bilateral understanding among institutions can pave the way for increased research collaboration.

While this study uses publication volume as a measure of CEM academics’ contribution, it is also acknowledged that the volume of publications across Australia institutions is in no way a measure of research performance, because some university/institutions may have a low volume and very high impact, and others may have a high volume and low impact. While analyses based on research volume can be practiced using the information available from publication databases such as Scopus, analyses based on research impact are highly challenging and open to multiple interpretations. A perfect way to measure academic and socio-economic impacts may still need to be developed. Future review studies are suggested to analyze Australian CEM research in terms of its impact.

Australia institutions need to continue to promote research that impacts society. Research impact can be defined as the effect on or the benefit to the economy, society, health, and environment, beyond academia. Research impact is important to measure, as it can help the higher-education institutions manage their performance; help the accountability of parties, particularly academics, contributing to research; and inform funding decisions [65]. A research impact measure of Australia-based CEM research can help assess institutional performance and can support decision-making for research relevant to the triple bottom line. For the Australia-based research to be highly representative of the local construction issues and trends, it needs to be inclusive. Such research not only needs to consider underrepresented communities, and project stakeholders as research subjects, but it also needs to be initiated and conducted by academics and industrialists with diverse backgrounds. Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for measuring inclusion, impact, and outreach can be developed, and based on these KPIs, the performance of Australian CEM academics can be determined.

5. Conclusions

With the aim of investigating Australia-based CEM research contributions, this study conducted a review of 4318 CEM-related publications from Australian universities. While providing a detailed understanding of the past CEM research trends in Australia, this review study also explored some future research directions for Australian institutions. The analysis of the reviewed studies indicated that the Australian research volume in some of the imminent topics, such as the ‘circular economy’ and ‘automation’, is lacking and, therefore, needs special attention. Only a few CEM publications acknowledge the support from Australian institutions. The lack of research funding in this discipline needs to be verified and inquired. Other than with Chinese and Hong Kong-based universities, Australian institutions have weak collaboration with their global counterparts. Strategies for increased collaboration may need to be developed and practiced. Rigorous measures to assess the research impact need to be developed and assess the impact of Australian CEM research on the triple bottom line. The findings of this review will be able to generate a discussion on the improvement of CEM research across Australian universities.

There are multiple ways in which this study contributes to the body of knowledge. First, dedicated reviews on CEM research for particular regions have been missing. The problem with generic reviews on CEM research is that the findings are not explicit to a region, and therefore recommendations tailored for a particular region cannot be provided. Being a first review of this nature, this study indicates the contributions and limitations associated with CEM research conducted in Australia. Based on the identified shortcomings, recommendations peculiar to the Australian context were provided. Second, identifying CEM studies from a particular region such as Australia is a wicked problem since the boundaries of CEM knowledge area are not well-defined. This review study used a trial-and-error approach to identify the optimal methodology for identifying CEM studies from Australia-based academics. The development of such a literature review methodology is unique within the domain of CEM.

There are some limitations, however, regarding the review methodology used in this study. The filters applied to conduct the review in this study ensured that only the research by 158 CEM academics authoring six or more publications in construction was selected for review. While this approach delivered highly relevant and representative studies, it is likely to miss the CEM research by authors who published less (<6 studies in this field) and who did not co-author with senior academics in this discipline. This may also limit the comparability of Australian universities among themselves.

This review study considered only the original research articles published in academic journals and indexed in Scopus and Web of Science database. It excluded the studies which may have been published in other formats (e.g., review papers, books, reports, and national journals) and which may have had impact in industry and academia. The numbers of publications and citations used as key criteria in this study are in fact measures of publication volume and prominence and may not always imply high research productivity or quality. Owing to these reasons, this study is primarily about establishing the trends in research topics and research collaboration, rather than to provide the absolute comparison among Australian universities. Lastly, the scope of this review study is limited to Australia-based CEM research. Accordingly, the application of the review findings is limited to Australian institutions engaged in CEM research. Future review studies can be conducted in other regions of significance, such as China, USA, UK, and Canada, to help compare the regional and cross-regional research developments in the CEM domain. While the secondary data from indexing databases such as Scopus are valuable to analyze research trends, they typically do not shed light on the research- and publication-related preferences and motivations of CEM academics. Semi-structured interviews with CEM academics can be conducted to substantiate and verify the research development trends observed from publication databases.