Research Productivity in Economics and Business Disciplines in Emerging Economies: Insights from Kazakhstan

The research productivity of a country is positively associated with the development of its scientific capacity, which, in turn, contributes to the nation’s economic growth. In this paper, we explore the research productivity of Kazakhstan in economics and business disciplines and reveal its specific characteristics. Our methodology followed two steps. First, applying scientometric (descriptive statistics and network analysis) methods, we analyzed 3225 articles from Kazakhstan and published in international journals during 1991–2020. We focus on three subject areas in Scopus: Business, management, and accounting; Decision sciences; and Economics, econometrics, and finance. Second, we conduct comprehensive interviews with four experts representing the science sector and government. The study found that research in economics and business disciplines was growing, emphasizing agriculture, agro-industrial complex, cluster development, entrepreneurship, innovative development, investments, and sustainable development areas. The interviews reveal the issues of doing research in higher education institutions (from the bottom-up) and improving the government’s science sector (from the top-down). Among others, these challenges are related to developing critical research areas, science funding, and their impact on economic growth. Our findings may serve as exemplary for other emerging economies that face similar challenges in developing their global research profile.