Developments and Themes in Islamic Work Ethic Studies: A Bibliometric Analysis

Abstract

Current literature shows that the study of Islamic work ethics is increasingly popular among researchers and human resource managers because the role of religion and its relationship to work outcomes is familiar in management. Islamic work ethics are expected to be able to fix employee morale problems that can have bad consequences for the company. This study explores trend analysis related to Islamic work ethics (IWE) research from 1988 to November 2022. The study seeks to learn more about (1) the growth and trend of publications in the field of IWE today, (2) the most prolific contributors to the study of IWE, (3) documents widely cited in IWE research; and (4) critical terms of keywords and concepts for the investigation of Islamic work ethics. Scopus was used to compile the information. The search yielded 175 documents, which became 160 documents after the screening. Biblioshiny, VOSviewer, Publish or Perish (PoP), and Microsoft Excel were used to export and analyze the data. According to the findings, the number of publications increased from one year to the next, peaking between 2016 and 2022. The study found that authors with Malaysian affiliations were the most significant contributors to the IWE study. Network visualization mapping is used to categorize studies of Islamic work ethics into four broad categories: knowledge about Islamic work ethics, employee behaviour and performance, leadership culture, and work motivation. In addition, the study also highlights two clusters of IWE studies, namely the influence and practice of IWE. The study has implications for the future development of IWE studies and suggests IWE studies in terms of potential corruption, innovation, and leadership.