A bibliographical study of software product management research

Software Product Management (SPM) is a relatively young research area which aims to understand how to productise a software product or a service as well as how to align it with the organisation's strategy. While the research of an academic discipline of SPM started to emerge as yearly as 1990s, the most impactful works have been published during 2006-2007. To understand how this young field has emerged and developed, this paper presents a bibliometric study on SPM publications found from Scopus (n=142). The identified studies have been produced by a small set of authors and institutions, which are mainly located in Europe. By using Bibliographic Coupling and Co-Citation metrics, the study shows that Software Product Management literature is drawing from several different related fields. Furthermore, the studied literature is tightly interconnected. The study also shows that the SPM field might be lacking a coherent intellectual background and new openings due to scattered research foci. To prevent this development, this work calls for a formation of a shared research agenda for the Software Product Management field.