Mapping the First 10 Years with Leximancer: Themes and Concepts in the Sports Management International Journal Choregia

This study uses Leximancer (a text-mining tool for visualising the structure of concepts and themes in text) to map the published research within Sports Management International Journal Choregia from 2005 to 2014. Drawing on 88 papers, of which 61 were classified as empirical and 27 as non-empirical ones, results reveal that the last half of the examined period concerned works that do not relate to the Greek context, which has been the case during the first years of Choregia’s publication. ‘Sports participation’, ‘physical activity’, ‘Greek football clubs’ – all largely associated with ‘management’ and ‘factors’ – shape the main themes in the studies published within Choregia. In addition, an emphasis on positivistic approaches, through the employment of questionnaires and utilising students as the population for data collection, appears to be the dominant methodological orientation of the published content in Choregia. Becoming the platform for studies that originate beyond the American, Greek, and Iranian contexts, through special issues and invited contributions in the form of research notes would potentially increase this outlet’s scope and depth (that is, context and themes, respectively).