Abstract:   In the new era, management research and practice are facing unprecedented complex challenges and opportunities, which put forward higher requirements for both the development of the field and scholars’ research. This paper analyzed the application and funding of the general project, youth project and regional project of the business administration discipline of the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) in the past three years (2021~2023) using the new code. This paper systematically analyzed the characteristics and trends of project application and funding from the perspectives of regions, institutions, project leaders, disciplinary fields and hot spots of research. The research results indicated that the application presents an increasing trend thus competition for youth projects is increasingly intense, while the distribution among regions is differentiated. Further analysis of the growth pattern of young researchers relying on the NSFC projects suggested that the trend of applicants′ youthfulness is obvious, and the youth projects play a key role in supporting the growth of researchers. In terms of research hotspots, the field of business administration actively embraces the change of scientific research paradigm and actively absorbs diversified technologies and research methods. Finally, the paper put forward targeted suggestions on project application, execution, and project management of institutions based on the development situation of the disciplines of business administration, which helps researchers to improve the ability of project application and execution, helps supporting institutions to better conduct the project management, and helps to facilitate the high-quality development of the disciplines of business administration.

Key words: National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC), discipline of business administration, research frontier, trend of funding