Current and potential research directions on the law of free trade zones: A bibliometric analysis (2004–2024)

Dynamic capabilities theory has become one of the most widely accepted theories of business strategy. The study aims to determine the degree of development of the dynamic capabilities theory. A meta-analysis was carried out through a bibliometric analysis and a systematic literature review. Documents published in Scopus and Web of Science between 1997–2023 were analyzed using VOSviewer software. 49 documents met the analysis requirements, with a maximum of 11 published in 2022. Keyword co-occurrences were also analyzed. 222 were found, and 26 were selected with at least two co-occurrences. The documents were grouped into six clusters by these keywords and analyzed to determine the degree of development of the theory. The results have shown popularity among researchers in different science branches, indicating a high degree of development. However, the study noted a lack of theoretical consistency in elaborating constructs for measuring variables in empirical investigations. As a result, this leads to a lack of consistency and generalization of the results. Hence, the theory is not considered fully developed in terms of lack of internal coherence, falsifiability, and predictability. Tools for the empirical measurement of variables need to be theoretically and empirically validated to ensure their application in different contexts. The confrontation of results from validated measurement tools in diverse environments will contribute to developing dynamic capabilities theory.

Acknowledgment
We appreciate the support granted through the Postdoctoral Stays program by CONAHCYT.

The training of law specialists in the context of the European integration processes should be based on educational standards and requirements both of the national legislation and international acts. In present conditions of dynamic development of social relations and, accordingly, the development and improvement of legislation, the scientific knowledge of legal phenomena becomes increasingly important both in practical activities (law-making and law enforcement) and in the process of training of specialists in the field of law. The knowledge of legal phenomena, categories, concepts and terms is a complex process of understanding the essence, content and structure of these phenomena in the process of scientific activity aimed at identifying the true characteristics of the surrounding social and legal environment in order to obtain the knowledge about these phenomena, their objective relationships and principles for their further use in practical legal activity (law-making and law enforcement).The application of scientific principles in legal education does not cause any doubt, however methodological approaches and the issues of employment of certain methodological techniques to ensure the unity of science and practice remain controversial. The article presents the author’s vision of solving complex issues relating to the understanding of the essence of legal phenomena by unifying the terminology, improving the conceptual apparatus and applying the relevant classification, etc. The presented authors’ reflections will help find the optimal model for developing a training process for specialists in the field of law. Such a model should take into account not only the labor market demand but also the practical skills and knowledge of law and legal practice. Therefore it is extremely important to use scientific principles in the educational process, the formation of scientific thinking of students and acquisition by them of scientific approaches and the methodology of scientific research.

While the literature on management theory has been growing in recent years, there are no publications regarding the evolution and mapping of this scientific field. This study dwells on the issues related to management theories in the context of today’s research by identifying the most important lines of research, researchers, and the concentration of research. To explore the trends in the development of management theory, this study used bibliometric analysis. The search in the Web of Science database provided 5,825 documents (including articles, books, reviews, etc.). Methods of trend analysis, clusterization, and comparative analysis were used. The results show that a new direction of responsible management research is being formed – the organization’s operations and objectives must be balanced, and their implementation must be responsible. This study enriches management literature by providing new ideas related to future research tendencies. Moreover, it fleshes out the direction for developing management theory and outlines the most-cited works and authors, the research concentration in different countries, and leading journals. For scholars and practitioners, such structured data are an important source of relevant information in published papers and allows for the definition of research guidelines.