Bibliometric Analysis of Published Postgraduate Dissertations About Clustering Within the Scope of Regional Development (2006-2017): An Evaluation from Tourism Perspective

The aim of this study is to investigate the postgraduate dissertations, related with „clustering in regional development‟ by a bibliometric analysis within the scope of certain parameters, which were written between the years 2006 to 2017 and partially or totally open access on the official website of the Higher Education Council, Turkey. Depending on the objectives of the research, the total number of 66 masters and PhD dissertations were evaluated. These evaluated postgraduate dissertations were analyzed by the bibliometric characteristics like „distribution by years‟, „type of the postgraduate dissertations‟, „institutions of postgraduate education‟, „institute of released dissertations‟, „department of released dissertation‟, „key words of released dissertations‟. It is displayed by the findings that the most postgraduate dissertations were written between the years 2013 and 2015. Dissertations about clustering within the scope of regional development vary both by subject and department. It is determined that business management, economy, urban and rural planning, tourism, geography and finance were the most frequent subjects in the clustering-based dissertations. The study concluded that PhD dissertations about clustering within the concept of regional development were more than Master dissertations. The studies analyzed about tourism clusters indicated that the provinces Antalya, Erzurum, İstanbul, İzmir and Nevşehir were studied within this concept.