Trends and Directions of Employee Experience: A Bibliometric Review for Future Research Agenda

Abstract

In recent years, the ‘battle of talent’ in the job market emerged as a topic of consideration. It describes the scenario when firms have difficulty both attracting and recruiting talented individuals on staff. As a result, companies are under increased pressure to differentiate themselves from other employees, and improving the employee experience (EE) has been suggested as a potential remedy. The article’s main goals were to assess the global research trends in EE upon outputs of publications, countries, co-occurrences, co-authorships and citations. This article uses a bibliometric analysis of EE publications from 2001 to 2021. A total of 870 publications were deduced following data pre-processing as per the Scopus database. We investigate the parameters of publications using reputable bibliometric measures, and influential institutions and contributing journals are explored. Next, a visualization tool known as VOSviewer is applied to illustrate science mapping analysis. Co-occurrence analysis of keywords is developed to detect the imminent topic trends of the journal. To examine how items are connected, co-authorship networks and citation networks are undertaken. The discussion concludes with some recommendations for potential journal difficulties in the future. The article contributes to the enlargement of EE in the research sector.

Keywords

Employee experience bibliometric analysis Scopus VOSviewer research direction

Introduction

Employee experience is a human resource management (HRM) technique that has a plethora of definitions in the extant literature, most likely because it is a new HRM concept. Employee experience, frequently abbreviated as EE, incorporates all of an employee’s feelings, perceptions and encounters during their job time at a business (Gupta, 2019). Employee views of fairness would be linked with positive organizational attitudes, such as confidence and acceptance of the company vision (Farndale & Kelliher, 2013). Employee happiness, dedication and engagement, as well as performance, in the long run, are directly impacted by the elements of the EE (Plaskoff, 2017). The multidimensional workforce is engaged; there is a competitive edge, and there is sustainable development when employees are satisfied and productive (Itam & Ghosh, 2020). The IBM and Globoforce research found that effective EE is firmly associated with employee performance, discretionary effort and turnover intention. Durai et al. (2018) showed that with the help of an increased level of personalization, authenticity, transparency, simplicity and organizational effectiveness can enhance EE. However, these measuring tactics must be implemented regularly to be beneficial to both individuals and the organization. According to the AON worldwide research mentioned in Patterson’s (2018) report, 21% of 1,500 HR professionals monitor employee engagement on a regular basis, while 29% recognize the significance of managers and HR in developing EE across various industries. Work balance, workplace cooperation, relationships among coworkers, appreciation, reviews, growth, autonomy, independence and gainful employment are identified as important determinants of great EE by Patterson (2018). As a consequence of one’s attitudes, convictions, intellectual representation and sentiments in reaction to subjectively oriented different influences, experiences are said to be authentically personal (Belk, 1975; Gardner, 1985; Holbrook & Hirschman, 1982; Zuckerman, 1971).

The employee’s experience has been the subject of various academic research projects and corporate reports during the past 10 years. It is an idea that initially attracted substantial interest from companies across a range of sectors and industries (Bersin et al., 2017), and then from academics in a variety of fields. The fields include marketing, organizational studies and hospitality (Ariza-Montes et al., 2019), as well as human resources (Batat, 2019; Bersin et al., 2017; Maylett & Wride, 2017; Plaskoff, 2017). EE is all about the job, not the office, and it tries to completely rethink workplace methods and environments to fit the employees, not the other way around (Maylett & Wride, 2017). According to Morgan (2017), the perspective of the employee may be a source of creativity, a means of boosting customer happiness, a method of attracting talent, engaging them in their work and enhancing their performance. The definition of EE is ‘the set of perceptions that employees derive based on their experiences at work in reaction to their contacts with the organization’. The definitions, which include connections to the EE framework for well-being, are all based on organizational and HRM literature even though they represent a variety of points of view (Itam & Ghosh, 2020; Plaskoff, 2017). Workers’ involvement, dedication, driving forces, effectiveness, competence and output are just a few of the numerous revolutionary worldwide business and management research challenges that may be understood and addressed using an EE strategy (Batat, 2022). Despite big promises, the development and implementation of a personnel sensory approach to improving organizational actors’ well-being with a focus on the complete experience of working have only lately seen a few projects. Limited studies on EE have been conducted, and a detailed examination of the definitions is provided by various authors. EE, as outlined in Table 1, is the impression that an employee has of their workplace as a result of their interactions with coworkers.

Table 1.

Definitions of Employee Experience.

Sl No.	Author	Definition
1.	IBM & Globoforce (2016)	‘A set of perceptions that employees have about their experiences at work in response to their interactions with the organization’.
2.	Plaskoff (2017)	‘Employee’s holistic perceptions of the relationship with his/her employing organization derived from all the encounters at touch points along the employee’s Journey’.
3.	Morgan (2017)	‘The intersection of employee expectations, needs, and wants and the organizational design of those expectations, needs, and wants’.
4.	Bersin et al. (2017)	‘A holistic view of life at work, requiring constant feedback, action, and monitoring’.
5.	Itam & Ghosh (2020)	‘The feelings, perceptions, and emotions that an Employee Experiences through their involvement in work and within the organizational environment, which provides them positive reinforcement to develop, contribute, engage and retain within the organization for good’.

The inquiry into EE was thorough and well-planned, yet certain challenges were still intractable. These bridge the gaps left by the research. In the entire world, very few studies on HRM have been conducted. Additionally, there has not been any research on the EE in the auto business, mutual fund sector, telecom sector and many more (King, 2019). Earlier, no study has been found on the bibliometric analysis of EE which may define the importance of publication trends, highest contributing journals, institutions, authors and countries.

The topic has been the focus of the literature analysis; therefore, an integrated thorough evaluation of current developments in this field assessment is done to quantitatively measure the advancements in this knowledge space. This study would analyse the current interlinkages regarding research in the area, outline the research’s organizational structure and deliver advice to future researchers on new research pathways.

Through a bibliometric evaluation and network visualization analysis, the article targets to answer the following research questions:

RQ1. In terms of the publishing of research papers/articles and citations, what are the main trends in the research on employee experience?

RQ2. In terms of authors, nations, journals and organizations, who are the leading contributors to the creation of knowledge in this field?

RQ3. How should the next phase of the study be conducted?

The major academic streams and bibliometric data on significant publications, papers, nations or publishers can provide data on the current analysis knowledge gaps and suggest potential probe trajectories, which is why these research topics are frequently used in bibliometric studies (Cuccurullo et al., 2016; Ellegaard & Wallin, 2015).

Materials and Methods

Data Description

Determining the dataset is the foremost requirement. Many datasets are well-known for their network collection, including the Web of Science (WoS), Science Direct, Scopus, Medline and Embase. The information accessibility, however, is a significant worry for this study’s development of the facilitator and the progress of earlier research. Using the intersection approach, Gavel and Iselid (2008) determined the coverage between the two major citation sources, WoS and Scopus, and discovered that Scopus had over 84% inclusion, encompassing items from WoS that have been indexed. The Scopus dataset offers a broader range of content than the WoS database, according to Feng et al. (2017) as well. Furthermore, Cobo et al. (2011) demonstrated that Scopus is an organized structured system susceptible to extracting publications information and metadata for a variety of study fields. Scopus was therefore chosen for this investigation in light of the aforementioned justifications. Bibliometric analysis sample selection procedure is displayed in Table 2. A great option for bibliometric investigations is Scopus (Vieira & Gomes, 2009) because it includes several analytical capabilities. In this study, the following data-gathering strategy is used.

Table 2.

Process of Choosing Samples for Bibliometric Analysis.

Steps	Explanation and Details
Database	Scopus
Duration	2001–2021
Keywords	‘Employee experience’
Refine	Keywords in title, abstract or authors’ keywords English articles/reviews
Initial specimen	966 publications
Fields	Engineering, sociology, commerce, management and accounting, as well as economics, econometrics, banking, psychology, arts & humanities, medicine, decision sciences, environmental science and computer science
Exclusion steps	96 articles were excluded based on the chosen year and subject area
Final collection	This bibliometric analysis comprised 870 articles

TITLEABSKEY (‘EmployeeExperience’) AND ( EXCLUDE ( PUBYEAR , 2022 ) OR EXCLUDE ( PUBYEAR , 2000 ) OR EXCLUDE ( PUBYEAR , 1999 ) OR EXCLUDE ( PUBYEAR , 1998 ) OR EXCLUDE ( PUBYEAR , 1997 ) OR EXCLUDE ( PUBYEAR , 1996 ) OR EXCLUDE ( PUBYEAR , 1995 ) OR EXCLUDE ( PUBYEAR , 1994 ) OR EXCLUDE ( PUBYEAR , 1992 ) OR EXCLUDE ( PUBYEAR , 1991 ) OR EXCLUDE ( PUBYEAR , 1990 ) OR EXCLUDE ( PUBYEAR , 1989 ) OR EXCLUDE ( PUBYEAR , 1986 ) OR EXCLUDE ( PUBYEAR , 1985 ) OR EXCLUDE ( PUBYEAR , 1982 ) OR EXCLUDE ( PUBYEAR , 1978 ) OR EXCLUDE ( PUBYEAR , 1975 ) OR EXCLUDE ( PUBYEAR , 1967 ) ) AND ( EXCLUDE ( SUBJAREA , ‘NURS’ ) OR EXCLUDE ( SUBJAREA , ‘MATH’ ) OR EXCLUDE ( SUBJAREA , ‘HEAL’ ) OR EXCLUDE ( SUBJAREA , ‘ENER’ ) OR EXCLUDE ( SUBJAREA , ‘AGRI’ ) OR EXCLUDE ( SUBJAREA , ‘BIOC’ ) OR EXCLUDE ( SUBJAREA , ‘EART’ ) OR EXCLUDE ( SUBJAREA , ‘MULT’ ) OR EXCLUDE ( SUBJAREA , ‘MATE’ ) OR EXCLUDE ( SUBJAREA , ‘PHAR’ ) OR EXCLUDE ( SUBJAREA , ‘IMMU’ ) OR EXCLUDE ( SUBJAREA , ‘PHYS’ ) OR EXCLUDE ( SUBJAREA , ‘CENG’ ) OR EXCLUDE ( SUBJAREA , ‘CHEM’ ) OR EXCLUDE ( SUBJAREA , ‘NEUR’ ) )

In the initial phase, the information was obtained from the Scopus database on 9 June 2022. The data were gathered using a keyword search that included the term ‘employee experience’ in titles, abstracts and author keywords. The year 2001–2021 was chosen as the range. Prior to 2001, the number of publications in the field of ‘Employee experience’ were scarce, that is, below 10 articles. The actual growth in the ‘Employee experience’ sector was seen during 2001–2021. Data were also filtered by disciplines (area of study), such as commerce, management and accounting, sociology, psychology, economics, econometrics & finance and arts & humanities, medicine, engineering, decision sciences, environmental science and computer science. This search yielded 632 articles that will be analysed and evaluated further.

Bibliometric Analysis

Hung (2012) defines bibliometrics as a collection of approaches for quantifying or evaluating data and texts. Moreover, according to Van Raan (2014), bibliometric analysis is essential for monitoring the growth of the literature and the development of studies through time. Bibliometric analysis solves this problem by quantitatively measuring the available literature. A sampling strategy for comparing and tracking the current notoriety of research in a chosen field of academic interest is bibliometric analysis (Dzikowski, 2018; Small, 1973). Unlike the conventional organized method, the bibliometric technique may analyse lengthy publications to provide a scientifically sound framework for study subjects (Zupic & Cater, 2015). VOSviewer (Bastian et al., 2009; Van Eck & Waltman, 2014) is a software programme that may be used to create graphic visualizations of bibliometric data and do network studies. A variety of bibliometric metrics based on keyword co-occurrence, co-citation and bibliographic coupling were utilized by Merigó and Yang (2017) to collect data for mapping (Valenzuela-Fernandez et al., 2019). The size of nodes and merging shows the strength of linkages in the network representation created by VOSviewer (Van Eck & Waltman, 2014). Some researchers favour VOSviewer because it eliminates cluttering labelling and uses multidimensional scaling stress minimization in its layout (Leydesdorff & Rafols, 2012). Figure 1 displays the stepwise procedures of Bibliometric Analysis.

Figure 1.

The Bibliometric and Network Visualization Analysis Methodology.

Results of the Study of Bibliometric Data and Network Visualization

Part A: Performance Analysis

Analysis of Publication Trends

Figure 2 shows the total number of publications published between 2001 and 2021 on ‘employee experience’. The findings reveal a constant growth in the majority of published papers over the course of the study, with the impact increasing over time. Only in the last decade has research in this field begun, with only a few publications between 2010, 2014 and 2016. The number of publications has only been slowly growing in the previous several years. The trend is anticipated to continue, with 2021 marking the highest year for papers published (131). Table 3 displays the type of documents, that is, 870 documents in the area of EE. A total of 701 articles were submitted, accounting for 80.6% of the total. Thus, the number of papers is rather large, implying that key research has evolved and changed. Figure 3 summaries the total document type in the form of a pie chart.

Figure 2.

Publications on Employee Experience from 2001 to 2021.

Table 3.

Document Type Information (2001–2021).

Sl No.	Document Type	Numbers	Percentage
1.	Articles	701	80.6
2.	Conference paper	71	8.2
3.	Book chapter	47	5.4
4.	Review	34	3.9
5.	Book	10	1.1
6.	Conference review	03	0.3
7.	Note	03	0.3
8.	Undefined	01	0.1

Figure 3.

Source: Scopus database.

Analysis of Institutional Contribution

The current scenario of the top 10 institutions publishing in this field is shown in Table 4. The table provides a brief overview of the institute’s contribution. As displayed in Figure 4, Brock University, Canada is the preeminent contributor followed by the University of Strathclyde, Scotland, and Arizona State University, United States. The top 10 institutions’ growth rates are shown in Figure 4. From 2001 to 2021, the number of papers from the Brock University, Canada, increased significantly. The increase in university-authored publications is another sign of the institutions’ growing importance on the world stage. In the field of EE, the European Nation has made a noteworthy contribution. China did not make it to the top of the list of top 10, while the United Kingdom and the United States maintain their position in the list.

Table 4.

Performance of Top 10 Contributing Institutions.

Sl No.	Name of the Institution	Number of Documents
1.	Brock University	16
2.	University of Strathclyde	13
3.	Arizona State University	12
4.	Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam	12
5.	North-West University	11
6.	Goodman School of Business	11
7.	Lunds Universitet	10
8.	University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign	09
9.	Rijksuuniversiteit Groningen	08
10.	Tilburg University	08

Figure 4.

Source: Scopus database.

Analysis of Subjects and Journals

From 2001 to 2021, a wide range of topics has made contributions to the area of EE. Table 5 lists the top 10 topics that account for the majority of the 870 documents. Top contributors to the overall number of articles were business, management and accounting (36.2%), social science (19.0%), psychology (13.3%), medicine (7.2%), economics, econometrics and finance (7.0%), computer science (5.5%), arts and humanities (4.0%), engineering (3.4%), decision sciences (3.3%) and environmental science (1.3%). Figure 5 depicts the top subjects that have contributed to the field of EE. The top five contributors, which are business, management and accounting, social science, psychology, medicine, economics, econometrics, and finance and computer science, show an annual rise in the graph.

Table 5.

Subject-wise Contribution.

Sl No.	Subject Area	Number of Documents	Percentage
1.	Business management and accounting	510	36.2
2.	Social science	268	19.0
3.	Psychology	187	13.3
4.	Medicine	102	7.2
5.	Economics, econometrics and finance	98	7.0
6.	Computer science	77	5.5
7.	Arts and humanities	56	4.0
8.	Engineering	48	3.4
9.	Decision sciences	46	3.3
10.	Environmental science	18	1.3

Figure 5.

Source: Scopus database.

The top 10 journals that offered the greatest to the topic of ‘employee experience’ between 2001 and 2021 are listed in Table 6. Articles on EE make up the highest of the publications in the top 10 journals listed in the table. Figure 6 showcases the year-wise publication of the top ten journals. Percentage of review articles by year shows the comparison between the 10 journals listed: International Journal of Human Resource Management (12.3% in 2005), Journal of Applied Psychology (34.6% in 2005), Personnel Review (57.89% in 2006), Employee Relations (30.56% in 1998), Frontiers in Psychology (10.81% in 2011), Work Employment and Society (93.02% in 2005), Journal of Vocational Behavior (18.75% in 2003), Journal of Management (34.21% in 2007), Journal of Business Ethics (44.39% in 2004) and Human Resource Management Journal (54.55% in 2005).

Table 6.

Top 10 Journals.

Sl No.	Journal	Number of Documents
1.	International Journal of Human Resource Management	14
2.	Journal of Applied Psychology	13
3.	Personnel Review	13
4.	Employee Relations	11
5.	Frontiers in Psychology	11
6.	Work Employment and Society	11
7.	Human Resource Management	10
8.	Journal of Business Ethics	09
9.	Journal of Management	08
10.	Journal of Vocational Behavior	08

Figure 6.

Source: Scopus database.

Analysis of Territory/Country Contribution

Figure 7 verifies the general picture of the top 10 countries involved in the field. According to this dataset, the United States created the bulk of the articles (27.36%) followed by the United Kingdom (15.75%), the Netherlands (6.09%), Canada (6.78%), Australia (6.21%) and so on. The rise has been especially noticeable in publications, where the United States is a key participant. The strong ties between the United States and the United Kingdom are seen in Figure 7. The tight cooperation between the United States and the Netherlands, Australia and Canada is obvious. It might be said that developed countries cooperate more in the publishing industry. However, several nations/regions exhibit just a minimal level of collaboration, such as Uganda, Japan and Brazil, on which greater attention might be focused. Table 7 confirms the contributions of the top ten nations in terms of the number of documents.

Figure 7.

Source: Scopus database.

Table 7.

Contribution of the Top 10 Nations.

Rank	Country	Number of Documents	Percentage
1.	The United States	238	27.36
2.	The United Kingdom	137	15.75
3.	The Netherlands	60	6.09
4.	Canada	59	6.78
5.	Australia	54	6.21
6.	Germany	53	6.09
7.	India	44	5.06
8.	Sweden	38	4.37
9.	South Africa	25	2.87
10.	Finland	22	2.53

Part B: Network Visualization

Co-occurrence of Keywords

According to co-occurrence analysis, the frequent usage of various keywords in a certain subject demonstrates the significance of terms in that discipline (Baldwin et al., 2003). The phrase ‘co-word’ describes a group of related keywords that frequently appear in writings on the same subject (Lu & Wolfram, 2012). The research approach themes are revealed through the co-occurrence of terms, which also looks at the relationships and patterns of related subfields (Ding et al., 2001; He, 1999).

A network model of keyword co-occurrences was developed with VOSviewer. ‘Author’s Keywords’ were taken into account while analysing the below terms. A required minimum of four occurrences was established for the term to be considered for the network analysis. From the Scopus database, 138 keywords were created. Figure 8 displays network visualization maps that each reflect a term co-occurrence from the Scopus database. The term ‘employee experience’ has the most co-occurrences, as can be seen in Figure 8. The thickness of the interconnecting lines between the keywords indicates the intensity of the connectivity, and EE has the strongest linkage with HRM and employee engagement. The network representations make it clear how EE is related to aspects such as employee performance, motivation, well-being, organizational justice, productivity and self-determination theory. The network visualization map makes it clear that there is room for further study into the connections between organizational culture, employee performance, job satisfaction, retention factors, innovations, turnover intentions and emotional intelligence difficulties. Table 8 verifies the list of top keyword occurrences with their links and overall link strength.

Figure 8.

Source: VOSviewer.

Table 8.

The List of Top Keyword Occurrences’ Links and Overall Link Strength.

RO	Keywords	Links	Total Link Strength	Occurrences	AVP
1.	Job satisfaction	39	49	29	2014
2.	Employee experience	28	43	40	2019
3.	Stress	35	42	28	2014
4.	Employee engagement	27	36	17	2018
5.	Human resource management	25	31	20	2014

Note: RO: ranking order, AVP: average publication year.

Co-authorship Links

The authors’ and nations’ patterns of collaboration while writing on the subject of EE were examined using the VOSviewer feature component of co-authorship visualization. Information about writers and authors from various nations who work together to create research articles on a certain topic is provided via co-authorship connections.

Co-authorship Network of Authors. With the minimum number of publications and citations set at 1 and 3, accordingly, the Scopus database produced 26 items organized into six clusters for the examination of the author co-authorship network. Figure 9a depicts the network of writers who collaborate on a piece of writing, with the colours in the figure denoting the cluster of authors who work together while the lines between the authors indicate the ties they have with one another.

Figure 9a.

Source: VOSviewer.

Based on the depiction of their co-authorship networks, Table 9 displays the overall link strength of the top five writers. The most publications, citations and links per publication make Andy Danford’s co-authorship network the strongest.

Table 9.

Based on the Co-authorship Network, the Top Five Authors’ Total Link Strength.

Sl No.	Name of Authors	Number of Publications	Total Citations	Total Link Strength
1.	Andy Danford	6	208	26
2.	Dirk De Clercq	15	187	25
3.	Muhammad Umer Azeem	7	150	19
4.	Inam Ui Haq	7	150	19
5.	Mike Richardson	4	115	16

The co-authorship network visualization map in Figure 9a shows that, despite the fact that there are enough authors, there is a minimal collaboration among authors in the field of ‘employee experience’. Also, there are not a lot of active researchers in the same. Therefore, it gives an immense opportunity to the researchers working on EE to collaborate and produce a wide range of publications.

Co-authorship Network of Countries. The collaboration network between the key research-related nations is shown on the network visualization map. The density of the connecting connection among those countries indicates the degree of the co-authorship relationship between those nations. This article looked at research articles that could only list 25 nations per article. Furthermore, countries with at least three documents and two citations were evaluated, thus generating 43 items in 10 clusters from the Scopus database. Figure 9b provides the network visualization map for the Scopus dataset’s co-authorship amongst nations. Using the co-authorship analysis’ overall relationship strength as a basis, Table 10 shows the top five countries. The findings revealed that the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, the Netherlands and Australia have the most common co-authors, with total link strengths ranging from 29 to 73. With 237 publications, 27 total linkages and a total link strength of 73, the network visualization map reveals that the United States has the most research initiatives.

Figure 9b.

Source: VOSviewer.

Table 10.

Citation Analysis

Citation analysis’ fundamental concept is that writers only cite material that is pertinent to their respective fields. Consequently, the citation is thought of as a gauge of significance (Dzikowski, 2018; Van Raan, 2003). Utilizing citation analysis is the most effective method for assessing the influence of a research publication (Tsay, 2009). We go into citation analysis based on the most popular authors and nations in this part.

Citation Network of Authors

Researchers are subjected to citation analysis to examine the research goals for the most referenced papers and illustrious authors. The greatest collection of 48 related authors was discovered when the minimal requirements for publications and citations were set at 1 and 2, correspondingly. Figure 10a depicts the authors’ citation network. According to the total number of papers published, Figure 10a shows the authors who have contributed the most articles. There are six clusters based on various colours; furthermore, authors with the same colour indicate that they are part of the same cluster and may cooperate more closely. The number of publications an author publishes and the number of citations they acquire together show the impact of the most active author (Dzikowski, 2018). Table 11 displays the top three occurrences’ of authors’ links and their overall link strength based on the number of citations. Dirk De Clercq and Muhammad Umer Azeem were the most influential authors. However, when directed by the number of publications, only a few researchers were identified and rated by citations. This finding demonstrates that although there is a lot of study on EE, researchers do not exhibit the anticipated interest in this area and that just because an author has published more articles does not automatically make them the most influential. Thus, citation analysis on EE lays the groundwork for authors to produce more publications with a higher number of citations.

Figure 10a.

Source: VOSviewer.

Table 11.

The Top Three Occurrences’ of Authors’ Links and Overall Link Strength.

RO	Authors	Citations	Publications	Links	Total Link Strength
1.	Dirk De Clercq	187	15	15	36
2.	Muhammad Umer Azeem	150	07	11	28
3.	Inam Ui Haq	150	07	11	28

Citation Network of Countries

Using bibliographic information from the Scopus dataset, VOSviewer was used to create the nation’s citation network visualization map (Figure 10b). A nation has to have a minimum of one document and one reference to be mapped in Figure 10b. Eleven clusters and 36 nations were the results. The network visualization map shows that the country with the most research projects is the United States, with 177 publications, 21 links overall and a total link strength of 62. A list of the top five countries based on citation links is shown in Table 12.

Figure 10b.

Source: VOSviewer.

Table 12.

Conclusion

We provided a bibliometric review of studies conducted to combat propaganda in EE in this study. In particular, we presented a study of research publications from 2001 to 2021 in the Scopus database. 870 articles in total were taken out of Scopus and utilized for bibliometric analysis. Instead of only presenting data acquired from databases, the methodology in this article employs network mappings and density analysis to show how the body of literature has grown. The outcome demonstrates the tremendous progress in the area of EE during the previous 20 years. Our data make it clear that research on propaganda in EE is booming.

The research scrutinizes a variety of bibliometric metrics, including the most prolific authors, institutions, nations, co-occurrence of keywords and cooperation between authors and countries. In terms of methodologies utilized, the study is more thorough and rigorous including bibliometrics, using performance analysis and network analysis. The country-specific papers and journals from many fields that highlighted various EE qualities provided a framework for the whole study. According to the statistics, the United States and the United Kingdom are the top two nations for this type of study. The findings revealed that the indicators for measuring research performance such as publication trends, institutional contributions and analysis of subjects and journals were closely intertwined. The keyword analysis indicates that propaganda studies on EE are geared toward disclosing certain issues such as employee engagement, job satisfaction, stress, burnout, commitment, performance appraisal and so on. The prominent authors include Dirk De Clercq, Muhammad Umer Azeem and Inam Ui Haq. The authors of the majority of publications are connected to Brock University, the University of Strathclyde and Arizona State University. Between 2001 and 2021, the study will provide readers all around the world with the most recent scholarly findings and useful information on every element of the subject. Researchers looking at EE would get useful information about the area by examining the many topics and lines of inquiry.

Limitations and Directions for Future Research

The study aims to provide a bibliometric analysis of all the texts published by the journal between 2001 and 2021 to understand the history of the publication’s scientific articles. The study closes the gap by performing a performance analysis and a scientific mapping of the articles from the journal’s previous 20 years. More than half of the papers on EE were produced between 2017 and 2021, a period that also experienced a rise in publications, citations and co-authors, and the results of the bibliometric study show that there has been a recent spike in interest in this field. The bibliometric analysis of the study’s data was restricted to empirical research, omitting data from other sources. The study only uses one database (Scopus) for data extraction, and the findings reached are based on these publications. Excluding the index keywords, the articles that were extracted were based on particular keywords. Furthermore, the current study relied solely on only one software programme for data processing, that is, VOSviewer. Using certain new software may result in a different presentation of the findings. The search databases, indexes, disciplines or keywords can all have an impact on the final results. Different tools, approaches and author knowledge may provide various clusters and different research streams. In addition, the study of citations places more focus on numbers than quality.

Overall as we see EE efforts increasing in practice, it is recommended to provide case-based practical perspectives. Detailed insights and recommendations in the form of studies are required to assist solve the issues and boost research in this sector. Some recommendations and contributions are given which may be beneficial for future research.

There is a paucity of sector-specific and cross-industry comparisons in the Scopus database, which is essential to promote future EE in HRM research and insights.

An absence of studies related to EE in various sectors such as automobile (Richardson et al., 2010), telecom (Zabadi, 2016), plant-based industry (Contreras-Cruz et al., 2023) and many more have been found which leads the way to undertake research on such areas.

Considering that the review’s study was centred on documents from English-language sources, it is possible that papers written in other languages were left out. Further research may help to circumvent this restriction using the use of papers that were written in another language.

Precedently, no work has been done on the assessment of bibliometrics of EE. Hence, it is a great future opportunity to opt for such kind of study.

The assessment only used a small number of tools used in the scientific mapping. The authors thus anticipate that further researchers will use this approach, which is based on different instruments, for a variety of inquiries.

Western nations including the United States, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and others provided the majority of the publications. India ranks 7th on the list of top 10 contributions made by Nations. Researchers such as Panneerselvam and Balaraman (2022), Yadav and Vihari (2021), Sinha et al. (2020), Soni et al. (2017) and Tymon et al. (2010) found a lack of work in EE in the Indian context. Thus, further research can promote contributions made by Asian countries, and additionally, collaborative research between Western and Asian countries can be done.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Sudhir Chandra Das

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Trends and Directions of Employee Experience: A Bibliometric Review for Future Research Agenda

Abstract

Keywords

Introduction

Definitions of Employee Experience.

Materials and Methods

Data Description

Process of Choosing Samples for Bibliometric Analysis.

Bibliometric Analysis

The Bibliometric and Network Visualization Analysis Methodology.

Results of the Study of Bibliometric Data and Network Visualization

Part A: Performance Analysis

Analysis of Publication Trends

Publications on Employee Experience from 2001 to 2021.

Document Type Information (2001–2021).

Analysis of Institutional Contribution

Performance of Top 10 Contributing Institutions.

Analysis of Subjects and Journals

Subject-wise Contribution.

Top 10 Journals.

Analysis of Territory/Country Contribution

Contribution of the Top 10 Nations.

Part B: Network Visualization

Co-occurrence of Keywords

The List of Top Keyword Occurrences’ Links and Overall Link Strength.

Co-authorship Links

Based on the Co-authorship Network, the Top Five Authors’ Total Link Strength.

Top Five Countries Based on Co-authorship Links.

Citation Analysis

Citation Network of Authors

The Top Three Occurrences’ of Authors’ Links and Overall Link Strength.

Citation Network of Countries

Top Five Countries Based on Citations Links.

Conclusion

Limitations and Directions for Future Research

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

Funding

ORCID iD

References

Sl No.	Countries	Number of Publications	Total Links	Total Citations	Total Link Strength
1.	The United States	237	27	7,175	73
2.	The United Kingdom	137	25	3,958	59
3.	Canada	59	12	1,567	45
4.	The Netherlands	60	17	3,192	32
5.	Australia	56	13	1,253	29