A comparative study of "technology roadmap" and "technology portfolio" using scientometric approach

"Technology roadmap" and "technology portfolio" are among the most widely used and popular tools in the field of management research, technology and innovation policy. The aim of the current study was to identify and evaluate the coordinates of these two concepts based on scientometric indices.

The present study was conducted using scientometric indicators based on scientific documents extracted from the Web of Science and some scientometric software such as the VOSviewer, without affecting the data.

The results showed that despite the differences in history and application, the two aforementioned concepts followed a similar path for some indicators, but their differences for other indicators were due to different factors such as the type of research (quantitative or qualitative), the object of study, the environment, and the expected objectives. The findings of the current study indicated that despite the larger number of published documents on the technology portfolio concept (4073 documents) compared to the technology roadmap concept (3475 documents) in the last 20 years, the volume of international communication and the number of active countries under the technology roadmap concept were much higher than under the technology portfolio concept.

The most commonly used topics of the two concepts differ from each other in other areas despite their similarities in areas such as energy sources, business, environmental and technological sciences, and green sustainable sciences. Although the trend of using both concepts had exceptions in some years, it is generally increasing over time.