The Role of Sport on Sustainability and Digital Technology: A Bibliometric Analysis
Chapter from the book:
Özbay,
S.
&
Turan,
M.
&
Seçkin Ağırbaş,
İ.
(eds.)
2024.
Sustainability and Qualitative Research in Sport Management.
Synopsis
In recent years, digital technologies play an important role in the sustainability of sport organisations and events. So much so that the use of digital technologies in sports fields is a key factor of sports sustainability. These key factors affect sports sustainability in many aspects such as energy efficiency, resource management, waste management. In all these cases, it has become important to integrate sport, sustainability and digital technologies with each other. Therefore, the main purpose of this study is to investigate the role of sport on sustainability and digitalisation through bibliometric analysis and to reveal how these two fields support and transform each other. When the relevant literature is examined, it has been observed that the research topic has not been examined sufficiently. This study differs from the analysis literature with both the comprehensive coverage of the role of sport on sustainability and digitalisation and the types of software used. All these situations reveal that there are not enough bibliometric studies on the subject and reveal the originality of this research. In this context, 452 publications obtained as a result of Web of Science search were analysed with Bibliometrix R package and VOSviewer software on various parameters such as ‘annual scientific production’, ‘average citation’, ‘title’, ‘abstract’, ‘keyword’. At the end of the research, it was determined that the adoption of environmentally friendly practices in sports organisations is extremely important. At the same time, it has been determined that the number of studies and citations addressing sports, sustainability and digital technology is increasing day by day. However, it was concluded that ‘China’, ‘America’, ‘United Kingdom’, ‘Italy’, ‘Spain’, ‘Australia’, ‘Germany’, ‘Korea’, ‘Portugal’, ‘Japan’ are the countries with the highest number of publications. It is proposed to examine the thesis studies on sport, sustainability and digital technology published in national and international databases by bibliometric analysis method. The findings obtained within the scope of the study are discussed in detail in the conclusion section.