Investigating the Systematic Mapping of Strategic Management in Selected Scientific -Research Journals: Identifying the Research Gaps and Implications for Future Research

Given the expansion of strategic management field of study in Iran at the master and PhD level of education, numerous articles, theses and books have been written in this field of study. Therefore, it is necessary to perform a systematic review of these studies in the current situation, to determine the procedure of research and the research gaps. In line with research area of ​​professors, the need of the country and, of course, the problem-centered of the researchers, studies have been published on strategic management and its sub-areas in scientific journals. The objective of this paper is identifying the subjects studied in selected journals, analyzing the the dispersion and frequency of studies, identifying research methodologies, and finally identifying the research gaps in the field of strategic management literature in the country. For this purpose, this study analyzes 9 selected scientific-research journals and 1757 papers by analyzing the secondary data and systematic review of current knowledge of strategic management using the systematic mapping study strategy. Finally, 343 related papers and 333 subjects were identified. The results of the research show that thematic coverage of the strategic management in these journals is 24.5%, the level of using quantitative method is 59.2%, the level of using qualitative method is 36.4%, and the level of using the mixed methods is 4.4%. In addition, major parts of the studies were conducted on strategic management process and its sub-areas with 95.1% and in there are a few studies (less than 5%) in the areas of theory building, strategy schools, quantitative foundations, philosophical foundations, interdisciplinary studies with other sciences and Islamic strategic management