Competitive advantage analysis of international scientific interactions using the location quotient index: A case study of industrial engineering

International scientific collaborations are an important and influential factor in the process of internationalization of universities and higher education institutions. The quantitative measure of this type of interaction is the international scientific output. Internationally published scientific articles play the most role. In this paper, the international scientific publication of industrial engineering in the world and Iran has been analyzed with a competitiveness approach through a Location Quotient Index (LQI) focusing on Iranian industrial engineering publication. The data base of this study is the 148240 records of bibliographic information of articles published in 55 journals in the field of industrial engineering and special focus on 3424 articles published by Iranian researchers in the last 50 years by descriptive survey method. The results indicate that industrial engineering production has been growing and leaping in recent decades. The top countries in the publication of international articles in this field are the US, China and the United Kingdom. A quantitative comparison of Iran's international scientific publication with that of other countries shows that it ranks 15th in the world and first in the region. Investigating the competitive advantage of international industrial engineering production of Iran in cooperation with other countries using the LQI shows that in terms of quantity and quality compared to total international industrial engineering publication in the world and total engineering publication in Iran, it has a relatively high relative competitive advantage