The Evolution of Employee Well-Being Interest in Management Sciences: Bibliometric and Scientometric Analyses
Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to assess the state of research on employee well-being and to answer the following questions: Q1. What was, is and will be the research context related to employee well-being? Q2. Who is the most influential author who it is worth collaborating with in research? Q3. Which scientific organizations should be contacted when planning research projects? Q4. In which journals should one publish to reach the largest number of people interested in the issue of employee well-being? Design/Methodology/Approach: The analysis covered publications obtained from the Web of Science Core Collection for the period from 1989 (the first publication in this area of knowledge) to the end of 2023. The collection consisted of 1,720 items. The VOSviewer program was used for the scientometric analysis, and UCINET 6 for Windows with the NetDraw 2 application for the analysis of centrality measures. Findings: The analyses allowed us to answer the following questions: Q1. The most important research contexts are employee well-being considered from the employee's perspective, the importance of employee well-being for the organization and employee well-being in the context of leadership. An evolution of interest can be observed from the initial search for definitions of concepts and theoretical models to the currently prevailing practical research using statistical modeling. Further multidisciplinary practical research should be expected, using modeling and developing specific diagnostic tools for the needs of management sciences. Q2. Based on the analysis of centrality measures, the following can be recommended as potential co-authors for further research: B.A. Bakker, A. van den Broeck, M. van Veldhoven and H. de Witte. Q3. The organizations that create the greatest potential for cooperation in projects in the field of employee well-being are: Erasmus University Rotterdam and Katholieke Universiteit Leuven. Q4. The first-choice journals for researchers studying employee well-being in the context of management should be: Personnel Review, International Journal of Human Resource Management and Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology. Practical Implications: The obtained results may be a hint for scientists interested in various contexts of employee well-being for further research and for cooperation with indicated researchers and organizations. Taking into account the indications resulting from the study should increase the effectiveness of disseminating the results of their research and acquired knowledge. Originality/Value: This is the first article to undertake scientometric research and analyze centrality measures in the field of employee well-being. This topic, although considered in the context of management sciences for 35 years, has not yet been analyzed in this way. This study helps fill this research gap.