40 years of Decision Support Systems: A bibliometric analysis

Decision Support Systems (DSS) is a leading international journal dedicated to decision support system research and practice, with the aim of exploring theoretical and technical advancements to facilitate enhanced decision making in industry, commerce, government, and other business settings. The journal published its first issue in 1985, and in 2025, celebrates its 40th anniversary. Motivated by this special event, this paper develops a comprehensive bibliometric analysis to present a lifetime overview of the development characteristics and leading trends of DSS journal between 1985 and 2023. By using the bibliographic data collected from the Scopus and Web of Science Core Collection databases, this study analyzes the publication and citation structure of the journal and investigates a wide range of issues including the most cited papers, the most cited documents by the journal's publications, the citing articles, the most productive and influential authors, institutions and countries/territories, and the most popular keywords and topics. Moreover, this work also graphically maps the bibliographic material by using the visualization of similarities (VOS) viewer software. In the graphical analysis, several bibliometric techniques in terms of co-citation, bibliographic coupling, and co-occurrence of author keywords are adopted. The results accentuate the significant growth and impact of DSS journal throughout its lifetime. It is expected that the journal will continue to grow its international reputation and disseminate knowledge in decision support, information systems, and business area, providing an efficient mechanism for researchers around the world to keep abreast with advances in the scientific community. • A general bibliometric analysis of the leading trends occurring in DSS journal between 1985 and 2023. • The journal's publication and citation structure, most cited papers, and leading authors, institutions, and countries/territories are investigated. • A graphical mapping analysis of DSS journal using co-citation, bibliographic coupling, and co-occurrence of author keywords. • The most popular keywords, topics, and topic clusters of DSS journal are identified.