Bibliometric Analysis on Employee Engagement and Human Resource Management

1. Introduction

Organizations and employees faced unpredictability and volatility in an ever-changing workplace.It encouraged individuals to be flexible and make adaptations to cope(Jiang et al., 2021). Thus, employee engagement has become a primary concern for management, who are continuously looking for new ways to keep their employees committed (Chandani et al., 2016).Therefore, it is viewed as critical to an organisation effectiveness, has experienced a rise of interest in human resource development (HRD) circles in latest years and has been the topic of substantial research Ghosh et al. (2013), Roof (2014), Saks & Gruman (2014). 'Employee engagement' (EE) has become an essential component of HRM's language, utilised to communicate the organization's key objectives to both the workers and top management.(Arrowsmith & Parker, 2013).

Nowadays researchers and scholars are increasingly using the term employee engagement in different social disciplines, such as psychology, organisational behaviour, management of human resources, public relations(Tkalac Verčič & Pološki Vokić, 2017).One of the most common approaches for defining how corporations aim to work with their stakeholders is engagement.(Tkalac Verčič & Pološki Vokić, 2017). The term “engagement” is frequently used to refer to a variety of organisational attempts to involve stakeholders in organisational operations and decisions.(Tkalac Verčič & Pološki Vokić, 2017)

When it comes to the definition of the employee engagement there is no universal explanation, however some scholars and researchers have defined it as an energising condition of participation in personally rewarding tasks that boosts one's level of professional efficacy (Maslach et al., 2001). While some define it as an“individual’s involvement and satisfaction with as well as enthusiasm for work”(Harter et al., 2002, p.217). Employee engagement is described as the capacity for workers to dedicate their psychological, physiological, and intellectual resources to duty performance in the presence of relevance, accessibility, and security.(Hameduddin & Lee, 2021)

Engaged employees are more productive, lucrative, better, and stronger, they remain in their companies more as compared to the disengaged employees who are likely to be less productive, have a negative impact on companies profit, suffer from more ailment (Wollard, 2011). Various research has been already done where different factors associated with employee engagement are studied.Memon et al.(2021) discussed the major determinants of employee engagement at work are job and assessment satisfaction while Hameduddin, (2021) formulated a model which examined the relationship between perceived environmental support and employee engagement. Although all existing research add value to this area but comprehensive research in the field of employee engagement is missing, so the present research tries to overcome it. This bibliometric research will help the researchers to identify the gaps and conduct the future research. Some of the research questions which will be studied in this paper are as follows:

• RQ1: What are the current trends in research in the area of employee engagement?

• RQ2: What is the leading, influential and impactful sources and contributors to the extent literature?

• RQ3: What are the most influential authors and co-words and most cited articles in the area of employee engagement?

• RQ4: Which are the leading countries where most of the research in this domain is carried out?

• RQ5: Which are the highest publishing sources and leading affiliations in the research area of employee engagement?