Abstract
Although previous studies on human resource management (HRM) research trends in the global context provided very useful information about the structures of HRM research trends, they have critical limitations. Despite the growing contribution and significance of HRM practices in Korea, a dominant group of scholars has rarely focused on what is going on in the research community in the country. To overcome the limitations and fill the gaps found in studies on the global HRM trends, the purpose of this study is to conduct the keyword network analysis investigating the semantic network structure composed of Korean HRM studies. A total of 1158 research papers published by three top peer-reviewed HRM journals in Korea that were published from 2007 to 2018 were analyzed. The result shows that the whole network structure of Korean HRM has a complex semantic structure that is socially constructed. Additionally, this study identified the top 10 prominent keywords and its ego-centric networks, and nine thematic clusters. By adopting keywords network analysis in bibliometric methods, this study provides an accurate structural interpretation of Korean HRM research practice to facilitate the sustainable development of the studies on the global HRM trends.
Highlights
South Korea is a country that has achieved unprecedented rapid economic development by the power of human resources
If we estimate the number of keywords, it would be a serious problem; our findings are based on the calculation of keyword structure based on graph theory that is formed by the co-occurrence of keywords
We found nine keyword clusters and labeled them based on keywords in each cluster as follows: strategic human resource management (HRM), creativity and innovation, employee emotional issue, relationship and attachment, group dynamics, career issue, fairness and justice in organization, commitment and satisfaction, and organizational support (See Table 6)
Summary
South Korea (hereafter Korea) is a country that has achieved unprecedented rapid economic development by the power of human resources. Human resource management (HRM) has received much attention from researchers in the country. Accumulated research in a scientific discipline formed a semantic structure that reflects the socially shared, common research interests, themes, and concepts [5,6]. This semantic structure can be used as a lens to interpret the field-related concepts or phenomena in which the intellectual community has interests [7]
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