High-Performance Work Systems in Service Industries: A Bibliometric and Thematic Analysis

Abstract

The imperative need of this hour is to measure the influence of high-performance work system (HPWS) research and comprehend its patterns as HPWS became more prevalent in service- oriented businesses. Underscoring this, authors aim to shed light on the publication trends and set the future research schema in the arena of HPWS with special reference to the service sector context. The study adopts a bibliometric approach as authors intend to identify and analyse the research breadth of HPWS research in the service context across the world, so that a statistical and analytical comprehensive overview of the research and suggestions for future directions can be provided. A portfolio of 262 articles was extracted from the Scopus database and various bibliometric techniques were used to analyse the collected research articles using “R” programming with biblioshiny web interface. The bibliometric results revealed the dynamics of research trends in HPWS service context studies, the most influential publications, authors, sources, the most productive countries, and affiliations. The citation analysis revealed the most cited scientific publications, and the countries from which most citations were received. Likewise, the thematic analysis revealed the underlying themes and patterns of HPWS service context studies that emerged with time. In such ways, this study contributes to the literature by depicting the intellectual landscape of HPWS research in the service context, that will be useful to the researchers, academicians, practitioners, policy makers and funding agencies.