human resource management research journal

Human Resource Management Journal

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Human resource management research in healthcare: a big data bibliometric study

Xiaoping qin.

1 School of Health Policy and Management, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and Peking Union Medical College, Beijing, 100730 China

Yu-Ni Huang

2 College of Medical and Health Science, Asia University, Taichung, 41354 Taiwan

Kaiyan Chen

3 Department of Education, Peking Union Medical College Hospital, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences & Peking Union Medical College, Beijing, 100730 China

4 Department of Innovative Medical Research, Hospital Management Institute, Chinese People’s Liberation Army General Hospital, Beijing, 100853 China

Richard Szewei Wang

5 Affiliation Program of Data Analytics and Business Computing, Stern School of Business, New York University, New York, 10012 United States of America

6 Tsinghua-Berkeley Shenzhen Institute, Tsinghua University, Shenzhen, 518055 China

Bing-Long Wang

Associated data.

All data and materials generated or analysed during this study are included in this published article.

Human resource management (HRM) in healthcare is an important component in relation to the quality and efficiency of healthcare delivery. However, a comprehensive overview is lacking to assess and track the current status and trends of HRM research in healthcare. This study aims to describe the current situation and global trends in HRM research in healthcare as well as to indicate the frontiers and future directions of research. The research methodology is based on bibliometric mapping using scientific visualization software (VOSviewer). The data were collected from the Web of Science(WoS) core citation database. After applying the search criteria, we retrieved 833 publications, which have steadily increased over the last 30 years. In addition, 93 countries and regions have published relevant research. The United States and Australia have made significant contributions in this area. Current research articles focus on topics clustered into performance, hospital/COVID-19, job satisfaction, human resource management, occupational/mental health, and quality of care. The most frequently co-occurring keywords are human resource management, job satisfaction, nurses, hospitals, health services, quality of care, COVID-19, and nursing. There is limited research on compensation management and employee relations management, so the current HRM research field still has not been able to present a complete and systematic roadmap. We propose that our colleagues should consider focusing on these research gaps in the future.

Introduction

Among the many management elements, people are the most dynamic and active element, and they are an important asset in organizations [ 1 ]. The term “human resources” was first coined by the academic Peter F. Drucker in 1954 [ 2 ]. The key function of human resources management (HRM) is to “put the right people in the right jobs at the right time” [ 2 ]. HRM refers to the planned allocation of human resources in accordance with the requirements of organizational development through a series of processes, such as recruitment, training, use, assessment, motivation, and adjustment of employees, to mobilize their motivation, bring into play their potential and create value for the organization [ 1 ]. Ensuring the achievement of the organization’s strategic objectives, HRM activities mainly include human resource strategy formulation, staff recruitment and selection, training and development, performance management, compensation management, staff mobility management, staff relationship management, staff safety and health management, etc. Similarly, modern healthcare management has human resources as the core. The HRM level in hospitals is related to the quality and efficiency of medical services provided by hospitals, which is also the core of internal hospital management and the focus of health macro management [ 3 ].

The World Health Organization (WHO) states that health systems can only work with the help of health workers, and that improving the coverage of health services and realizing the right to the highest standard of health depends on the availability, accessibility, acceptability and quality of health workers [ 4 ]. In response to evolving characteristics in socio-economic development and the human resource market, healthcare system personnel reforms are evident in three key areas: first, decentralization and flexible employment practices grant hospital managers greater decision-making autonomy concerning priorities and access to medical resources. However, they also impose quantitative and functional constraints on physicians' working hours, career planning, and medical payment systems. Second, a focal point is the rational allocation of technical staff to achieve efficiency while controlling labor costs. Finally, hospital organization change and restructuring are prevalent. Many European countries have unionized hospital employees, limiting the ability to establish independent incentives and rewards. In contrast, U.S. hospital employees often do not belong to specific organizations, leading cost control efforts to revolve around adjusting the allocation of technical staff and employee numbers to reduce labor expenses [ 5 – 7 ].

The current global trend in the number of publications on HRM in healthcare is rising. However, there are currently several problems in HRM research. The following issues mainly exist: (1) the expertise and professionalism of HRM managers are limited. (2) Theoretical methods and technical applications are weak. (3) Insufficient regulation of regulations, systems and procedures. (4) Management is mainly at the level of operational work, and functions are too fragmented [ 8 , 9 ]. Although hospitals worldwide generally recognize the importance of HRM, they do not pay sufficient attention to it. The management of human resources is also stuck in the previous understanding that its work is carried out only by transferring positions in hospitals, promoting and reducing the salary of employees and a series of other operations [ 10 ]. Most senior management in hospitals have comprehensive medical knowledge; some are experts in a particular field. Still, they lack expertise in HRM, which makes them work in a transactional way in HRM. There is also currently a general health workforce imbalance in countries worldwide. The lack of well-being of healthcare workers is particularly problematic in foreign healthcare institutions [ 11 ], and to reduce costs, some organizations have reduced staffing levels. In turn, because of lower quality of service, the morale of healthcare providers often suffers. Patient satisfaction may decline [ 12 ]. In the process of data gathering, we found that the literature related to HRM in healthcare is still under-reported and that the research topics are scattered, and there is still a lack of generalization and summary of these literatures [ 13 ]. There is no systematic theoretical support in the current research, which defines the perspective that researchers should take when analyzing and interpreting the data to be collected, leading to biased interpretations of the results, and does not allow other researchers to combine the findings with existing research knowledge and then apply them to practice [ 14 ]. Second, data collection was not rigorous, and the downloading strategy was not appropriate to achieve completeness and accuracy of data. There is also a lack of information and incomplete use of features in the presentation of knowledge maps and visualization results [ 15 ].

Therefore, the aims of this study are the following; first, we provide a new way of viewing the field of healthcare HRM and its associations by examining co-occurrence data. Second, we relate our evolutionary analysis to a comprehensive future research agenda which may generate a new research agenda in healthcare hospital HRM. This review, therefore, focuses on illuminating the research frontiers and future roadmap for healthcare HRM research [ 16 , 17 ].

Materials and methods

This study provides a bibliometric analysis of the HRM research literature in health care over a 30-year period to describe the landscape and trajectory of change in the research field. The methodology used for this overview is based on bibliometric mapping [ 18 , 19 ], a visualization technique that quantitatively displays the landscape and dynamic aspects of the knowledge domain [ 20 ]. Data were collected from the Web of Science (WoS) core citation database. Two Java-based scientific visualization software packages (CiteSpace and VOSviewer), developed by Chaomei Chen and Van Eck and Waltman, were used to analyze the data [ 18 , 21 ].

The data for this study were retrieved from the Web of Science on 28 September 2022. Web of Science was chosen as the search engine, because it is the most widely accepted and commonly used database for analyzing scientific publications [ 22 ]. The keywords “human resource management” and “healthcare organization” were used as search topics. First, to get a complete picture of HRM research, we searched all the literature from 1977 to the date of the search.

Eight hundred thirty-three publications on HRM in healthcare organizations were identified (Fig.  1 ). We excluded publications before 1990, because the two documents before 1990 did not include complete information. In addition, articles, review articles, and early access articles were included in the study. To minimize language bias, we excluded literature published in languages other than English. Each publication in WoS contains detailed information, including the year of publication, author, author’s address, title, abstract, source journal, subject category, references, etc. A detailed description of the contents of the database preceded the bibliographic analysis. For example, some authors presented their names in different spellings when submitting articles, so reviewing and integrating the data in detail was necessary. A total of 718 publications were included and exported to VOSviewer and CiteSpace software to analyze the following topics: global publishing trends, countries, journals, authors, research orientations, institutions, and quality of publications.

Research flow chart of the bibliometric analysis

Introduction to CiteSpace and VOSviewer

VOSviewer is a software tool for building and visualizing bibliometric networks. It was developed by Van Eck and Waltman [ 21 ]. In VOSviewer, metric networks can be visualized and analyzed for factors, including journals, researchers, or individual publications. They can be constructed based on citations, bibliographic couplings, co-citations, or co-authorship relationships [ 21 ].

Global publication trends

Number of global trends.

After applying the search criteria, we retrieved a total of 718 articles. Figure  2 a shows the increase in articles from 1 in 1977 to 108 in 2021. To predict future trends, a linear regression model was used to create a time curve for the number of publications throughout the year, and the model fit curve for the growth trend is shown in Fig.  2 b. The trend in the number of publications fitted the time curve well at R 2  = 0.8802. The R-squared value is a measure of how well the trend line fits. This value reflects the degree of fit between the estimated value of the trend line and the corresponding actual data; the better the fit, the more reliable the trend line is [ 23 , 24 ]. Based on the model’s trends, it is also predicted that the number of articles on HRM in healthcare will increase to approximately 300 by 2030, an almost threefold increase compared to 2021.

a Total number of publications related to HRM research. The bars indicate the number of publications per year. b Model fitting curves of global publication trends. c Top 10 countries of total publications. d Distribution world map of HRM research

Country and regional contributions

Figure  2 c, d shows the number of publications and the world distribution of the top 10 countries in total publication numbers. The USA contributed the most publications (172, 24.2%), followed by Australia (86, 12.0%), the UK (83, 11.6%), and China (78, 10.9%).

Total number of citations

The USA had the highest total number of citations of all included publications (5195) (Table ​ (Table1), 1 ), while the UK ranked second (2661), followed by Australia (1960) and the Netherlands (1271). The detailed rankings and numbers are shown in Fig.  3 a and Table ​ Table1 1 .

Contributions in publications of countries

a Top 10 countries of average citations for each article. b Average number of citations. c Top 10 countries of the H-index

Average citation frequency

Belgium had the highest average number of citations (49.26), followed by the UK (32.06), the USA (30.2), and Canada (27.13), as shown in Fig.  3 b.

Total citations and the h-index reflect the quality of a country’s publications and academic impact[ 25 ]. Figure  3 c shows the ranking of the h-index, where the top country is the USA (h-index = 36), followed by the UK (h-index = 27), Australia (h-index = 23), and Canada (h-index = 22).

Analysis of publications

Table ​ Table2 2 shows the top 10 journals for publications on HRM in healthcare, with 54 articles published in “International Journal of Human Resource Management”, 44 articles published in “BMJ Open”, 30 articles published in “Journal of Nursing Management”, and 24 articles in “BMC Health Services Research”.

Top 10 journals of publications related to HRM research

Table ​ Table3 3 shows the top 10 most published authors with 96 articles/reviews in the last decade, representing 13.4% of all literature in the field. Timothy Bartram from Australia has published 19 papers, followed by Sandra Leggat from Australia, Stanton P from the USA, and Townsend K from the UK with 13, 11, and 10 papers, respectively. All researchers listed as authors were included in this term for analysis, regardless of their relative contribution to the study. Notably, we have included all authors in this analysis regardless of their relative contribution to the study.

Top 20 authors of publications

Research orientation

Figure  4 a shows the top 10 research orientations of the 100 research orientations. The most common research orientations were management (193 articles), nursing (107 articles), health policy services (105 articles), and health care sciences services (201 articles).

a Top 10 research orientations and the number of publications in each orientation. b Top 20 institutions with the most publications

Institutions

Figure  4 shows the top 20 institutions with the most published papers. La Trobe University has the highest number of articles with 24, followed by the University of London (23) and Griffith University (18).

Co-occurrence analysis

In the keyword mapping on HRM research in healthcare, the size of the nodes represents the frequency, while the line between the nodes reflects the co-occurrence relationship. A total of 1914 keywords were included, and 59 met the criteria. All keywords were grouped into six clusters: performance (light blue cluster), job satisfaction (red cluster), quality of care (blue cluster), human resource management (brown cluster), occupational/mental health (purple cluster), and hospital/COVID-19 (green cluster) (Fig.  5 ).

Co-occurrence analysis of HRM research in healthcare

The most prominent themes in HRM research in healthcare are as below. In the “Performance” cluster, the keywords which have the greatest co-occurrence strength were “performance”, “systematic review”, “decentralization health system” and “motivation”. The main keywords in the “Job Satisfaction” cluster are “job satisfaction”, “organizational commitment”, “transformational leadership” and “turn over”. In the “Quality of care” cluster, the keywords that stand out are “quality of care”, “patient safety”, “high-performance work system”, “quality management” and “patient satisfaction”. In the “Human resource management” cluster, the prominent keywords include “human resource management”, “health policy”, “public health”, and “education and training”. In the “Occupational/Mental Health” cluster, the prominent keywords are “Occupational health”, “mental health”, “well-being” and “burnout”. The main keywords in the “Hospital/COVID-19” cluster were “hospitals”, “COVID-19” “workforce” and “qualitative research”.

Global trends in HMR in healthcare

Our study of HMR research in healthcare illustrates current and global trends in publications, contributing countries, institutions, and research orientations. The field of HMR research has evolved over the past three decades. However, as this study shows, the number of publications steadily increases yearly, with 93 countries or regions publishing in the field, suggesting that research focusing on HMR research and providing in-depth knowledge will likely increase.

Quality and status of publications worldwide

We find that most publishing countries are developed countries, but developing countries are catching up. The total citation rate and the h-index reflect the quality and scholarly impact of a country’s publications [ 25 ]. According to our study, the US ranks first among other countries in total publications, citations, and h-index, making the most substantial contribution to global HRM research. The UK and Canada also contribute significantly, with impressive total citation frequencies and h-index, especially the UK, which ranks second in average citation frequency. However, some countries, such as Belgium, Canada and Australia, also play an important role, given their high average citation frequency. In developing countries, HRM research has also served as a guide for hospitals to improve the quality of care. The study will serve as a reference for developing countries to learn from the experience of developed countries as their economic development gradually catches up with that of developed countries.

The impact and prestige of the journals can be seen in the number of articles published in the field and the influential journals in healthcare HRM research, including the BMC Health Services Research, the Journal of Nursing Management, the International Journal of Human Resource Management, the Health Care Management Review, and the Journal of Health Organisation and Management. These high-quality journals are thus the main source of information for researchers in this field on the latest developments in HRM in healthcare.

The study shows that almost all of the top 20 institutions come from the top five countries with the most publications, with the majority coming from the US, Australia and the Netherlands, reflecting the great academic influence of these three countries in the field of HRM in healthcare. These institutions play an important role in raising the academic performance of a country. Furthermore, the top 20 authors represent research leaders who are likely to impact the future direction of research significantly. Therefore, more attention should be paid to their work to stay abreast of the latest developments in the field.

Research Focus on HRM

Keywords play a crucial role in research papers as they contain vital information [ 26 ]. A systematic analysis of keywords within a specific research domain offers valuable insights into trends and focal points across various research areas [ 27 ]. Moreover, co-occurrence analysis relies on the number of joint publications to evaluate relationships among the identified keyword domains. As a result, it serves as an effective method for predicting future trends and focal points within the research areas of interest. These findings are expected to inspire more researchers to contribute to the future of HRM research in healthcare [ 28 ].

In this study, a total of six research domains were eventually summarized. Performance, Hospital/COVID-19, Job Satisfaction, Human resource management, Occupational/Mental Health, and Quality of care. By visualizing the analysis results, we can easily further clarify future trends. As the co-occurrence diagram shows, the keywords “Organizational culture”, “Patient safety”, “Nursing”, “Leadership”, “Quality of care” and “Hospitals” are highlighted as larger icons, so that investment and demand for quality research are necessary for the context of these six research directions.

Six modules and research directions in human resources

This study found that the visual clustering results and the keywords that emerged from the clusters were closely related to the HRM module s described in “Human Resources Management: Gaining a Competitive Advantage” by Noe. R . [ 29 ]. The modules have been cited in HRM research and are used as textbooks in universities [ 30 – 33 ]. Some of the keywords in each cluster correspond to human resource planning, performance management, recruitment and staffing, and training and development, respectively. The explanation of the HRM modules is described in the next paragraph. However, there are no explicit keywords in the modules related to employee relations management and compensation management results. This may be due to the private nature of the compensation structure in healthcare organizations during data collection, making it unavailable.

The explanation of the HRM modules [ 29 ]

• Human resource planning is the starting point of HRM. It helps the organization forecast future personnel needs and their basic qualities, primarily through planning.
• Recruitment and staffing, with HR planning as the input, is equivalent to the organization’s blood, nourishing the organization and solving the problem of staffing and staff matching.
• Training and development, with the “education” theme.
• Performance Management is at the heart of the six dimensions. It is also the primary input to the other dimensions.
• Compensation management aims to motivate employees to solve the company’s problems.
• Employee relations management aims to manage people and help the company form an effective cycle of rational human resource allocation.

Human resource planning

Human Resource Plan (HRP) stands for the implementation of the HR development strategy of the enterprise and the accomplishment of the enterprise’s goals, according to the changes in the internal and external environment and conditions of the enterprise, through the analysis and estimation of the future needs and supply of human resources and the use of scientific methods for organizational design, as well as the acquisition, allocation, utilization and maintenance of HR and other aspects of functional planning. HRP ensures that the organization has a balance of HR supply and demand at a needed time and in a required position, and achieves a reasonable allocation of HR and other resources to effectively motivate and develop of employees [ 34 ].

Decentralization health system, organizational culture/structure are high-frequency words in the clustering results related to “human resource management”. It is important to assess the extent to which decentralization can be used as a policy tool to improve national health systems. For policymakers and managers, based on relevant literature and research as well as country experience analysis, the experience of decentralization in relation to the organization and management of healthcare services is considered a forward-looking and pioneering concept capable of achieving optimal allocation of HR and other resources, in addition to the need to focus more on ex-ante and ex-post incentive development to deliver a 1 + 1 > 2 HRM effect [ 35 ]. HRP is the starting point and basis for all specific HRM activities. It directly affects the efficiency of the overall HRM of the enterprise. It is, therefore, taken as the primary job requirement for HR managers [ 36 ]. Organizational culture/structure significantly impacts the healthcare sector, such as excellence in healthcare delivery, ethical values, engagement, professionalism, cost of care, commitment to quality and strategic thinking, which are key cultural determinants of high-quality care delivery [ 37 ]. Therefore, as with other for-profit organizations, healthcare organizations must ensure that their organizational structure functions effectively to achieve their strategic goals. The organization formulates and implements HRM, an important task to achieve the development strategy goals.

Staff recruitment and allocation

Recruitment and staffing are the first steps in hospital HRM activities. Under the guidance of the organization’s human resources development plan, potential staff who meet the development conditions are attracted. Through the scientific selection of outstanding personnel, a platform with guaranteed treatment and development prospects is provided to ensure that the team of the healthcare organization is built solidly and meets the development needs. From the findings of this study, the keywords “workforce” and “workload” appear as high-frequency keywords in the co-occurrence analysis. Still, keywords related to traditional staff recruitment (e.g., analysis of recruitment needs, job analysis, competency analysis, recruitment procedures, and strategies) do not appear often. Recruitment and staffing are the prerequisites of human resources work. They bring a new dynamic source to healthcare organizations while complementing staff, making the organization full of vitality and vigor, facilitating organizational innovation and management innovation and helping improve the healthcare organization’s competitive advantage [ 38 ]. Recruitment and staffing, as a part of HR, directly impact the successful running of daily activities.

Training and development

Human resource training is an important component of quality and safety in the health care system. The keyword “education and training” shows a high frequency of co-occurrence in the clustering results of analysis, corresponding to the module “training and education”. However, it is connected to the keywords “human resource management” and “health policy”, and is in the same cluster with” public health”, “health care management”, and the distance between the lines and dots indicate that these topics are closely related, proving the importance of education and training in the HRM of health systems. Healthcare organizations (especially for non-professionals and caregivers) can improve the performance of their employees by enhancing their capabilities, knowledge and potential through learning and training, so that they can maximize their qualifications to match the demands of their work and advance their performance [ 39 , 40 ].

Performance management

Performance management, the core of the six modules, is also featured in the clustering results. Although this is an important focus for HR professionals, few studies have explored the link between HRM and health sector performance [ 6 ], the results show “performance” and “motivation”. The effectiveness of performance management is an important component of HRM, which effectively improves the quality of care in healthcare organizations/institutions [ 6 ]. Focusing on the effectiveness of performance management is considered to be crucial. First, as an integral part of HRM within an organization, it can help the organization meet its goals. Second, ineffective approaches can lead to negative attitudes among employees (including clinicians, nursing staff, administrators, etc.) and adversely affect performance due to decreased satisfaction among employees and patients. Third, given the increasing quality and cost reduction pressures on healthcare organizations, conducting further research on performance management and effectiveness is critical [ 41 ]. However, it is clear from our results that healthcare organizations have recognized the importance of performance management and are pursuing “high performance”. Although the topic of performance management in HRM in healthcare is one of the research priorities, the number is lacking and more discussion on performance management should be suggested for future research.

Compensation management

Compensation is an important tool to motivate employees to work hard and to motivate them to work hard. The results of the database's bibliographic analysis show that no keywords directly involved compensation. This indicates that “compensation management” has not been considered a hot topic or a research issue over 30 years of available literature. To clarify the content of this module, we further searched the database of 718 articles with keywords, such as compensation, remuneration, salary, etc., and found that only 35 of them mentioned or discussed compensation, and some years (e.g., 2018, 2009) even had no relevant literature being published. However, issues such as fairness of compensation management and employee compensation satisfaction are still important issues of concern to business management academics [ 42 , 43 ]. The actual situation is that it is difficult to conduct research on compensation management. Most organizations keep their employees’ compensation confidential, and when conducting research, HR managers avoid talking about their employees’ compensation or leave it vague, rendering it impossible for researchers to conduct further research.

Employee compensation is one factor that has the greatest impact on organizational performance. In the future, organizations should be encouraged to scientifically structure their compensation management and empower academic research to establish and implement fair compensation management systems based on empirical research while maintaining the privacy and security of organizational information.

Employee relations management

The connotation of employee relations management involves organizational culture and employee relations, as well as the coordination of the relationship between employers and employees. Healthcare organizations have complex structures with employees with varying skills, tasks or responsibilities, and such conflicts are often managed through the communication skills of administrative staff [ 44 ]. Although the keywords related to “employee relations management” did not occur in this study's analysis results, the six HRM modules are closely related. Therefore, this does not mean that no description of employee relations management was completely absent in the retrieved articles. It is clear that there is currently a lack of research on employee relations management in the healthcare field. Still, with the continuous development of the healthcare industry, it faces multiple challenges. If employee relations are not handled properly, healthcare organizations with social responsibility will face great public pressure, which will even affect the quality of healthcare services and performance, so it is especially important to strengthen the research on employee relations management.

This study inevitably has some limitations, the first of which arises from using quantitative methods to review documents in the field of HRM. The review relied on an analysis of the bibliographic data associated with the documents rather than a review of the research findings. The impact of the study was, therefore, limited to the general direction of developments in the field, rather than a synthesis of research findings. As a result, we may have missed some publications due to database bias. Second, most of the publications identified were in English and some articles relevant to other languages have not been included. Third, Since HRM exists in a wide range of industries and research areas, although researchers have set the screening criteria as detailed as possible, there may still be some literature that has not been detected.

This study describes the current state and global trends in HRM research in healthcare. The United States has made significant contributions in this field, establishing itself as a global leader. It is foreseeable that more and more publications will be published in the coming years, which indicates that HRM research in healthcare is booming. The analysis results of this study echoed the modules of HRM. It can be seen that in the current HRM research, many topics have been of interest. However, the focus and hotspots of the research are scattered, and there is presently no systematic research on the content of HRM in healthcare.

Acknowledgements

The authors thank the Editor-in-Chief and the referees for their helpful comments which help to improve our manuscript significantly.

Author contributions

BW, ZH and LLconceived of the presented idea. BW, developed the theory. BW, YH, RW, KC and XQ collected the data and discussed the results. BW and YH encouraged XQ to investigate the hospital management field and supervised the findings of this work. All authors discussed the results and contributed to the final manuscript.

This research was supported by Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and Peking Union Medical College, China (Grant number: 2021-RC630-001).

Availability of data and materials

Declarations.

There are no human or animal studies in this manuscript, and no potentially identifiable human images or data are presented in this study.

Not applicable.

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Publisher's Note

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Innovation and human resource management: a systematic literature review

European Journal of Innovation Management

ISSN : 1460-1060

Article publication date: 18 January 2022

Issue publication date: 19 December 2022

This study aims to map scientific publications, intellectual structure and research trends in the development of human resource management (HRM) by adopting innovative practices. Specifically, it aims to (1) identify the fundamental contributions of research and to (2) determine the lines of research that constitute the most prominent intellectual structure to contribute to defining a future research agenda.

Design/methodology/approach

This study employs bibliometric, bibliographic coupling and cluster analysis techniques. To evaluate any potential patterns among the articles, it is analyzed how those were jointly cited. Hierarchical cluster analysis was also applied to those subject to bibliographic coupling analysis within the scope of grouping the interrelated articles into distinct sets.

The results enabled the identification and classification of various theoretical perspectives on human resources development through the adoption of innovative practices into four main approaches: (1) organizational factors of success, (2) strategic HRM, (3) human behavior and (4) learning management.

Originality/value

This study identifies, explores, analyzes and summarizes the main themes contributing to deepening the literature by identifying the priority areas concerning HRM through the adoption of innovative practices that can guarantee international standards of excellence.

• Systematic literature review

Jotabá, M.N. , Fernandes, C.I. , Gunkel, M. and Kraus, S. (2022), "Innovation and human resource management: a systematic literature review", European Journal of Innovation Management , Vol. 25 No. 6, pp. 1-18. https://doi.org/10.1108/EJIM-07-2021-0330

Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2022, Mariana Namen Jotabá, Cristina I. Fernandes, Marjaana Gunkel and Sascha Kraus

Published by Emerald Publishing Limited. This article is published under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) license. Anyone may reproduce, distribute, translate and create derivative works of this article (for both commercial and non-commercial purposes), subject to full attribution to the original publication and authors. The full terms of this license may be seen at http://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0/legalcode

1. Introduction

Potgieter and Mokomane (2020) argue that the strategic emphasis of a human resource management (HRM) department can be summarized as the effective management of teams and individuals in an organization aimed at competitive advantage and performance success. Thus, there is growing interest in investigating the role of HRM departments and practices in supporting companies' capacity for innovation ( Engelsberger et al. , 2021 ). Due to the recent transformation (such as digitization) of most organizations, HRM's role in strategic management has become more important ( Zhou et al. , 2020 ), as these practices can provide tools for change and innovation and support strategic decision-making in organizations ( Sheehan et al. , 2016 ).

The HR strategy is increasingly related to the prevailing organizational strategy, experiencing the direct impact of ongoing changes while supporting the organization's development in the emerging digital environment. Thus, HRM practices have increasingly considered the needs of Industrial Revolution 4.0, which inevitably points to huge changes in the established system and its contexts. Within this scope of change, high-performing organizations adopt radically different forms and become more digital and innovative ( Deloitte, 2017 ).

HRM plays a significant role in supporting changes. Thus, several studies have begun to examine the relationship between HRM and innovation, specifically, practices that contribute to innovation in organizations. Looise and van Riemsdijk (2004) suggest that four aspects of HR are important for innovation in an organization, namely, work design, people, performance management and rewards, as well as communication and participation. De Leede and Looise (2005) present a model relating the HRM strategy to organizational results, such as innovation and success, noting that HRM practices, resulting from the strategy, can lead to results such as creativity, commitment and competencies, resulting in the organizational results of innovation and success.

Although HR practices and employees seem essential for innovation, empirical research linking the areas of HRM and innovation is quite scarce ( De Leeds and Looise, 2005 ; Laursen and Foss, 2014 ; Seeck and Diehl, 2017 ). Given the strong and growing focus on innovation, the HRM of organizations also needs to review their employees' skills. According to Meskó et al. (2018) , 50% of all current jobs will be outdated in the next two decades. This leads to the imperative challenges faced by HRM in advancing at a faster pace, adapting practices and routines as well as facilitating organizational learning ( Muñoz-Pascual et al. , 2019 ). HR practices are innovative and support innovation within organizations ( Kossek, 1987 ; Looise and van Riemsdijk, 2004 ).

Innovation in HR is related to changes in the social systems of organizations and the adoption and diffusion of these innovations, due to environmental forces and social processes ( Koosek, 1987 ). As noted by Looise and van Riemsdijk (2004) , these HR innovations are fundamental to innovation within organizations. Supporting employees' careers and establishing a goal and objective systems with rewards for successfully undertaking and conducting innovation ( Cano and Cano, 2006 ) are important for innovation. Thus, reflecting on the impacts that innovation can enhance regarding the future of work and employment is important. Furthermore, the HRM's role in supporting these changes should be carefully analyzed. Hence, a more in-depth analysis of HRM structures, rethinking routine activities, reviewing policies, developing new knowledge and skills and enabling teams to work in work environments that are completely different from previous ones.

Seeck and Diehl (2017) were the first and so far only scholars to systematize the theme of innovation in HRM, identifying 35 empirical studies linking HRM and innovation over 25 years (1990–2015). The results indicate the importance of the relationship: HRM practices implemented by organizations have a positive effect on innovation. Given the growing importance, and the speed of innovation, examining the development of this strand of literature is of utmost importance. This is also observed by Natalicchio et al. (2018) who conclude that the direct effect of HRM is of interest to research and the moderating role of HR practices requires a broader debate in the literature.

Thus, inspired by the work of Seeck and Diehl (2017) and building upon as well as updating it, we aimed to stimulate academic improvement and provide a better sense of direction and offer a thorough and systematic review of this expanding literature. We focus on addressing the following questions: What constitutes innovation in HRM? What theories support research on innovation in HRM? Our study makes several important contributions to the literature. First, we present a systematic review of the literature on innovation in HRM using bibliometric techniques (e.g. Donthu et al. , 2021 ). This helps identify the previous literature's findings and sets the stage for new research, summarizing the main knowledge gaps and directions. Second, our review challenges several theoretical/conceptual assumptions prevalent in HRM innovation research and offers new perspectives that can shape future research. Third, we define a road map for an informed research agenda that proposes multiple improved directions.

Overall, our study aimed to conduct a mapping of scientific publications, intellectual structure and research trends in the area of innovation in human resources management. Specifically, we intend to (1) identify the fundamental contributions of research in this area and (2) determine the lines of research that constitute the most prominent intellectual structure to contribute to the definition of a future research agenda.

2. Methodology

This study aimed to critically analyze studies that examine HRM's role in innovative companies through a systematic literature review (SLR), bibliographic coupling and cluster analysis techniques. The SLR process starts with the definition, objectives and conceptual limitations ( Kraus et al. , 2020 ). This study concentrates on the macro-context of strategic HRM associated with innovation to broaden the conceptual understanding of the adoption of such practices. For this, the following goals were established: (1) identifying studies published in scientific journals on HRM practices related to adopting and conducting innovation in organizations; (2) proposing an integrated evaluation of the problems and discoveries of the leading individual studies to understand the scenario surrounding human resources and innovation; and (3) presenting implications for HRM practices ( Denyer and Tranfield, 2009 ).

Next, the software package VOSviewer was used to generate bibliometric maps and identify bibliographic coupling in the article references. Bibliographic coupling classifies two articles when they make recourse to the same reference item ( Kessler, 1963 ). Each cluster was determined by analyzing the content and keywords, and thus, the most pertinent information of the articles in the sample. The resulting clusters serve as a starting point for organizing the scientific outputs.

2.1 Selecting the review method

This work aimed to overcome the challenges associated with the increasing volume of scientific production (e.g. subjectivity), as evaluating and comprehending a topic's literature requires scientific analytical tools ( Kraus et al. , 2021 ). Therefore, it engages in a systematic process of identifying, analyzing and synthesizing discrete streams ( Snyder, 2019 ; Kraus et al. , 2020 ; Vrontis and Christofi, 2021 ) to establish the theoretical underpinnings of in–home service consumption. For this, we adopted a hybrid review methodology by combining a bibliometric and framework-based review ( Figure 1 ) ( Snyder, 2019 ). The bibliometric review enabled us to quantify the productivity of scientific research, identify thematic clusters and establish the foundations of in–home service consumption ( Mas-Tur et al. , 2020 ). The framework-based review set the foundations for the proposed innovation and HRM framework and a comprehensive understanding of innovation and HRM. A review based on bibliometric analysis provides a powerful set of methods and measures for studying the structure and process of scholarly communication. To study the available literature, we relied on three widely used techniques of bibliometric analysis: evaluative, relational and review techniques ( Echchakoui, 2020 ). The evaluation technique focuses on the academic impact and includes three types of measures: influence (e.g. number of citations per year and per author), productivity (e.g. number of publications per year and per author) and hybrid (a combination of influence and productivity) (e.g. the average number of citations per paper). The relational technique explores the relationship between units of analysis on a specific topic or research field, identifying patterns and networks among journals, publications and/or authors. Co-citation analysis, bibliographic coupling, co-authorship analysis and co-word analysis are examples of relational techniques (e.g. Kraus et al. , 2012 ). The review techniques refer to systematic literature reviews, meta-analyses or qualitative studies ( Echchakoui, 2020 ). The present study encompasses all three bibliometric techniques.

2.2 Data collection and processing methods

A literature search was conducted using the Web of Science database. The search terms used were “innovation” and “human resource management” (and possible abbreviations). A total of 532 articles were obtained.

To obtain the primary objective and specific goals, the search focused on articles from academic journals, narrowing them to 446 articles; followed by the filters “topic,” in the categories of “management” and “business,” in English language and in December 2020. In summary, 241 articles indexed in the database were identified in the Web of Science , which can be considered “the most prestigious database and leading academic institutions and the research world” ( Gasparyan et al. , 2013 , p. 1271). Figure 1 provides the details of the research protocol.

The data were processed using VOSviewer software (version 1.6.15), which sets the parameters for bibliographic coupling at a minimum cluster size of six articles. This procedure resulted in a final sample of 237 articles, which were grouped into four clusters. Among them, four articles excluded by the software were disregarded. Furthermore, based on the exclusion criteria, after reading the publications, 201 articles were excluded because they were not related to HR and innovation and the adoption of innovative practices in HRM, including theoretical/conceptual and empirical publications. Descriptive statistics were produced using SPSS Statistics software version 27.0.

Each scientific publication included in the sample was analyzed regarding (1) the performance, thus, the descriptive statistical data and (2) trends in clusters along with the cluster descriptions.

3.1 Performance

As demonstrated by the previous overview study of Seeck and Diehl (2017) , the number of publications relating HRM to innovation is relatively low. However, our study shows that there has been a rising interest in the topic, as presented in Figure 2 . From 2015, in which the overview study of Seeck and Diehl ended its analysis, there has been a sharp increase in the number of publications. There were only 18 studies on the topic from 1987 (the date of the first publication) to 2015, but another 18 from 2016 to 2020.

When examining the research methods of the publications, we found that the majority, namely 20 studies (55.6%), were quantitative by nature, followed by 11 (30.6%) qualitative studies. Among them, four (11%) were conceptual, and one (2.8%) was a mixed-method study that applied qualitative and quantitative methods.

A broad range of methods were employed across the articles. Regarding the quantitative articles, five publications utilized structural equation modeling, and four used regression analyses as methods, making them the most common methods. Case studies were the most popular method for qualitative studies with seven publications, followed by two studies using document analysis, and two using mixed methods design. Regarding conceptual studies, three were theory publications, and only one was a literature review. The only mixed-method study utilized linear regressions and telephone interviews as the quantitative qualitative methods, respectively.

3.2 Cluster trend s

To portray the trends in the literature regarding innovation and HRM, we approached the bibliographic confluences among the 36 studies in the sample. This resulted in the definition of the four clusters. This organization of the clusters and respective publications contained in each was designated by the software tool for the construction and visualization of bibliometric networks ( VOSviewer, 2021 ). Figure 3 presents a visual model of the cluster network.

Descriptive analyses were conducted to examine patterns in journals, groups of authors and publications related to the group and topic, as well as the number of citations related to the authors. Table 1 presents the journals in which the studies were published and the number of citations in the publications during data collection.

The identified articles can be grouped into four clusters ( Figure 4 ):

The following table provides an overview of the articles in the four clusters:

Although the overall number of publications in the area was low, a broad range of journals served as an outlet for the studies. Human Resources Management and the International Journal of Manpower published the largest number of publications (three publications each). In the former, two publications belong to Cluster 2, in 2020 and 2019, and one article to Cluster 1, which was published in 1987 and is the first publication in our study sample. In the latter, one article belongs to Cluster 3 (year of publication 2020), another to Cluster 1 (year of publication 2011) and one to Cluster 2 (year of publication 2005). International Journal of Project Management, Journal of Management, Journal of Organizational Change Management, Organization Science and Technovation have served as an outlet for two studies, whereas the remaining journals have published only one study in the area.

An examination of the citations revealed five author teams with over 100 citations: Seibert et al. (2001) with 637 citations under the auspices of Cluster 1, Lopez-Cabrales et al. (2009) with 175 citations belong to Cluster 2, Akgun et al. (2007) received 137 citations for their articles in Cluster 3, Chou (2014) with 108 citations in Cluster 2 and Kwak and Anbari (2009) gained 103 citations for an article in Cluster 4. Of the 36 published articles, four were not cited during data collection, which may be because they were all published in 2020.

4. Cluster descriptions

In the next step, all articles in each respective cluster were read and analyzed to determine whether they responded to the research objective of providing implications for HRM. The analysis enabled the identification of shared characteristics and points of divergence, which led to the establishment of the research categories for each cluster. The four research clusters are discussed below:

4.1 Cluster 1: Organizational factors of success

The cluster “organizational success factors” comprising 11 articles, focuses on understanding the relationship between proactivity and innovation and the appropriate role of the HR manager.

Proactiveness is a personality trait that is positively related to career growth and innovation ( Seibert et al. , 2001 ). HRM systems are mediators that influence the development of work and increase proactive behaviors and motivation, vital for the development of organizations ( Tummers et al. , 2015 ). According to Shaw et al. (2005) , the adoption of human resources compensation models is crucial for organizational innovation, regardless of the adopted compensation models.

Baruk (2017) clarifies that employer branding is important, and necessary for companies, such as employer brands, to establish strategies that allow them to achieve organizational innovation. From the viewpoint of Bayo-Moriones et al. (2020) , HR and their performance evaluation must be aligned with the company's innovation strategy.

In this cluster, a group of three authors who focused their publications on knowledge management as a success factor for innovation can be identified.

The creation, transformation and use of different types of knowledge must be considered fundamental assets in innovative performance ( Nielsen and Rasmussen, 2011 ). For these authors, knowledge management is strictly related to learning, organization and innovation, which have a direct impact on the performance of companies. According to Feldman et al. (2019) , regarding innovation, companies must adopt five practices: promote human resources based on their characteristics related to taking initiative and ability to lead, perform job rotation, pay attention to the remuneration system, provide job security and hire workers based on knowledge and experience. Ganz (2020) argues that companies with clear innovation goals should experiment with the best strategies to adopt, according to their human resources. For this, they must experiment in low-risk environments and then apply the definitive strategy in a real context.

Kossek (1987) clarified that business innovation is directly linked to the ability to form networks and HRM alliances with professors and consultants. Moreover, it clarifies that senior management's role is to present the HR department and its respective executives as crucial elements in strategic decisions, in the construction of a work environment in which workers believe that executives care about their welfare. According to Ottenbacher and Harrington (2010) , there are two global success factors for innovation: market attractiveness and strategic HRM. Thus, service advantage, empowerment, employee training and behavior-based assessment all influence the intended outcomes of innovation.

4.2 Cluster 2: Strategic HRM

This cluster consists of 10 articles that contribute to understanding the impact of strategic HRM on innovation.

For Natalicchio et al. (2018) , the success of innovation practices is not in the recruitment of highly qualified employees but in the ability to implement employee training activities. In other words, innovation occurs through teams, with a focus on learning and developing innovative minds. Thus, it is important to adopt collaborative and competitive mechanisms to manage innovative ideas that arise within a company ( Cano and Cano, 2006 ; Bergendahl and Magnusson, 2014 ). According to Wang et al. (2005) , HRM has a direct and positive impact on the entrepreneurship process and, consequently, on the success of innovation activities. Omta et al. (1994) add the importance of management control and human resource practices to innovation's success.

Companies should also adopt advanced technological systems in HRM to create a collaborative culture that establishes alliances and partnerships; they should promote relationship networks for the exchange of experiences and technological support. This stimulus to organizational learning, through the development of human capital and its absorption capacity, is a predictor of organizational innovation ( Perez et al. , 2002 ; Muñoz-Pascual et al. , 2019 ; Pradana et al. , 2020 ). Hence, Lopez-Cabrales et al. (2009) argue that the impact of innovation and organizational performance depends on the systematization of HR knowledge. They argue that knowledge-based HRM practices have a positive influence on innovation and profit. However, it is important to realize that these practices become more difficult in small-and medium-sized companies ( Muñoz-Pascual et al. , 2019 ). Della Torre et al. (2020) remind us that, despite the importance of technological systems for innovation activities to be successful, it is essential to implement motivational systems dedicated to raising workers' motivation.

4.3 Cluster 3: Human behavior

This cluster consists of nine articles that help us understand how human behavior contributes to innovation activities.

Along with physical and financial capital, human capital drives companies toward innovation activities. Several authors argue that organizational development is achieved through human capital, as it enables companies to obtain an innovative capacity that allows them the necessary resilience to face the obstacles and challenges arising from globalization, competitiveness and the knowledge-based economy ( Menéndez Blanco and Montes-Botella, 2017 ; Marjanski et al. , 2019 ). For Yazici et al. (2016) , innovation and proactivity are key factors for organizational growth. The organizational climate also promotes the well-being of employees and, therefore, if companies have more satisfied employees, they can implement innovative activities to achieve better results ( Chou, 2014 ; Kao et al. , 2020 ).

In innovation activities, the leader's behavior has a direct impact. In organizational environments, marked by high competitiveness and uncertainty, innovation is vital for survival and long-term success. In these circumstances, leaders with altruistic behavior can create business environments that facilitate innovation, through appropriate learning atmospheres ( Escrig et al. , 2016 ; Kiesnere and Baumgartner, 2019 ).

Another promoter of innovation and its success is the emotional capacity of companies and its impact on organizational learning. This learning ability is directly linked to product innovation and company performance ( Akgün et al. , 2007 ; Soomro and Shah, 2015 ).

4.4 Cluster 4: Learning management

This cluster is composed of six articles that relate learning management to innovation.

HR practices (recruiting and selecting activities, as well as training programs) must be effective and aligned with the knowledge management strategy and the business, regarding organizational strategy, for innovation activities ( GOPE, Elia and Passiante, 2018 ). Companies that adopt knowledge management practices can generate a competitive advantage as a result of the innovative process ( Gonzalez and de Melo, 2018 ). Gonzalez and de Melo (2018) show that the knowledge management process is impacted by five contextual factors: HRM, supportive leadership, learning culture, autonomy and information technology systems. Olander et al. (2015) argue that human capital and knowledge are the Allies of innovation. There are several practices related to commitment, trust, motivation and a sense of responsibility, which strengthen loyalty and improve the preservation of the company's intellectual capital.

For Calamel et al. (2012) , the solution of sustainable models lies in innovation practices and identifying increasing levels of cooperation as well as creating collaborative projects in HRM; through collective learning different skills can be developed. In sustainable models focused on industrial ecology, the optimization and better efficiency of resources are achieved through the integration and coordination of skills, innovations and new routines in functional areas, innovation and development of all technologies, waste control, human resource adjustments, management of environmental constraints and networking and marketing ( Kwak and Anbari, 2009 ; Kabongo and Boiral, 2017 ).

5. Discussion

To support future research on HRM practices on innovation, we established the conclusions from a review of the evidence derived from the peer-reviewed literature using the Web of Science database. This was aimed at developing a structure that illustrates the core considerations around this theme, enabling the identification of behaviors for the adoption of innovative practices in HRM, evaluating the problems and discoveries and providing indications for human resource strategic management and policy practices ( Aguinis et al. , 2021 ). For this, we used a framework that categorizes the clusters, specifically, organizational factors of success, strategic HRM, human behavior and learning management.

This duly highlights that this conceptual structure was developed by ascertaining the facts supporting the development of the knowledge base. This study identified, along with the four direct clusters around the core areas in strategic HRM, 15 themes/subareas of interest: proactivity, innovation in services, factors of influence in HRM, HR subsystems, knowledge management in HRM, organizational performance, HRM practices, learning capacity, impact on the organizational climate, impact on entrepreneurship, leadership, factors of organizational growth, impact on the organizational climate, project management and sustainable business models.

The subareas arise from the content analysis of the articles in each cluster. In Cluster 1, organizations with greater chances of obtaining superior organizational results present elements such as proactivity, the practice of innovation in services offered, knowledge management practices, the adoption of HR systems and innovation in HRM subsystems in their routines. These success factors are interconnected with Cluster 2, which complements the strategic management of the area and its practices as key elements for performance and competitiveness gains. In Cluster 3, the relevance of behavior and human capital emerges to capture and enjoy the benefits of innovation, contributing to the growth and learning capacity of the organization through people, promoting impact on the organizational climate and developing the entrepreneurial spirit within the company itself. Moreover, the importance of leadership was analyzed to stimulate the construction of environments that allow their employees to be open to radical and incremental innovations. Finally, in Cluster 4, high-performance HRM practices as well as their effective ability in the relationship with knowledge management convey reiterate the existence of HR practices aimed at enabling individual learning, motivation and staff retention. This may prove favorable for HR managers to encourage employees to engage in learning processes and, consequently, improve organizational results and innovation.

Hence, we detailed the main trends in the literature on the motivations and obstacles to the adoption of innovation in HRM, as shown in Figure 5 .

Based on the reviewed articles, we identified various limitations of the research and, consequently, representing some potential contributions for consideration by future research projects, as outlined in Table 2 .

6. Conclusion

This study sought to critically analyze the literature to drive the development of HR through the adoption of innovative practices. We may affirm that this research field has been ongoing since 1987. Despite the 33 years of research, the field remains in the construction phase, and a significant proportion of the studies only adopt exploratory qualitative approaches. The trends regarding the number of articles published in this timeframe, despite the relatively low total number (only 36 publications), reflect an increasing level of academic interest in studying innovation in association with HRM, whether at the conceptual understanding level or through empirical studies enabling the development of new policies and more modern HRM practices, bringing better results that can benefit the company–HR sector–teams triad. The results obtained demonstrate that 2019 may turn out to be a landmark in this scientific field regarding associating innovation in HR given the surge in publications.

There was also the scope for identifying how the authors' main interests focus on understanding and developing mathematical models that can assist in identifying the organizational success factors in knowledge management, proactivity and HR subsystems. This objective arises from providing greater recognition of the factors that favor innovation-friendly management, as well as helping HR managers plan where they can prioritize efforts for organizational growth.

Furthermore, the research, to a certain extent, advances conclusions on the debate about knowledge management in the majority of these studies and that permeates throughout the clusters. These emphasize the relevance of learning and stimulating the development of teams and, as such, standing out on the list of priority tasks for HRM. This also pointed out how, paradoxically, this interlinkage between knowledge management and the clusters in the current research – the “learning management” cluster registered the lowest number of publications regarding the other groups. The justification may reflect how this theme underlies all approaches and is, therefore, not an individual theme of lesser interest.

This also advanced with the need to reflect on the importance of the HRM role within the organizations deemed innovative as well as those seeking to develop their innovative environments and as a mediator in this process to assist companies facing competitive markets.

This also verified only a low level of research on approaches to the deployment of technologies, specifically, the adoption of systems versus innovation in the HR department. This raises questions about how HR might better accompany technological practices and means. Would it be a good innovation practice for HR to adopt systems that facilitate routine tasks and management? What image should HR convey in support of other sectors and the organization without bolstering its position, thus, without adopting innovative practices by deploying software and “tech practices” that facilitate and enable their tasks?

The research also corroborates an understanding of the future of work in approaching research that presents sustainable business models, acclaimed for applying more modern and longer-lasting organizational practices.

As every study, also ours has a number of limitations. First, our keywords, process and use of specific databases (Web of Science) may have resulted in the omission of potentially relevant other studies. Second, because we concentrated on analyzing and integrating existing research, we did not provide research propositions connecting the themes and elements of innovation and HRM. Third, this review only included studies published in peer-reviewed academic journals written in English; it excludes books, conference proceedings and other literature, as well as articles written in other languages that might have be relevant. Although we are aware of and confident in our results, we believe they are representative of the research conducted in this field. Hence, we believe that we provided a perspective of the intellectual structure of this field of study, along with the contribution of our conceptual model, for future investigation.

Research protocol

Number of publications per year

Cluster network

Clusters of innovative practice adoption

Framework for adopting innovation in HRM

Key journals with the most cited publications and authors

Future directions

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Journal of HRM – HR Advances and Developments (JHRM-AD) is a double-blind peer-reviewed international scientific journal  of the Faculty of Management of the Comenius University in Bratislava in Slovakia   , published in cooperation with the Slovak Academic Association for Personnel Management (SAAPM) .   The Journal of HRM has a publication history since 1998 and is currently published twice a year.  The Journal is indexed in EBSCOhost, Ulrichsweb and Ulrich’s Periodicals Directory, EconBiz, ERIH PLUS, CEEOL, RePEc EconPapers, Google Scholar, DOAJ and CrossRef content registration.

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Mapping the frontier: a bibliometric analysis of artificial intelligence applications in local and regional studies.

1. Introduction

• How has the scientific output of local or regional studies applying AI evolved over time?
• Which are the countries with the most articles published?
• Which authors have conducted the most significant local or regional studies using AI?
• Which were the most impactful journals in the field of local or regional studies that applied AI?
• Which are the most significant universities for the field of local or regional studies that have used AI?

2. Materials and Methods

• Science Citation Index Expanded (SCIE)—1900–the present;
• Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI) 1975–the present;
• Emerging Sources Citation Index (ESCI) 2005–the present;
• Arts & Humanities Citation Index (A&HCI)—1975–the present;
• Conference Proceedings Citation Index—Social Sciences and Humanities (CPCI-SSH)—1990–the present;
• Conference Proceedings Citation Index—Science (CPCI-S)—1990–the present;
• Book Citation Index—Science (BKCI-S)—2010–the present;
• Book Citation Index—Social Sciences and Humanities (BKCI-SSH)—2010–the present;
• Current Chemical Reactions (CCR-Expanded)—2010–the present;
• Index Chemicus (IC)—2010–the present.

3. Dataset Analysis

3.1. preliminary data analysis, 3.2. sources analysis.

• Remote Sensing and Sustainability have surged in recent years, starting with the year 2019;
• The journal PLOS ONE has also registered a surge over the more recent years, but it is slightly lower than the one for the aforementioned two journals;
• Even if they initially registered a high growth rate, the journals Mathematical Problems in Engineering and Sensors are now registering a constant growth rate.

3.3. Authors

• Total number of articles—China is by far the country with the greatest amount of research, with a total of 81 articles, followed by the United States of America, with 20 studies, and Italy, with 15 scientific studies;
• SCP articles—similarly to the previous point, China is the country with the most single-country publications, with an impressive number of 69 articles, followed by Italy, with 12 studies, and the United States of America, with 11 scientific studies;
• MCP articles—the country with the most published articles that are authored by corresponding authors who are from different countries is China, with 12 studies, closely followed by the United States of America, with 9 articles, and the United Kingdom, with 6 scientific studies.
• Amongst European countries, only Germany, Italy, Spain, and the United Kingdom tend to collaborate with each other;
• Asian countries, such as China or Vietnam, frequently collaborated with European countries, like Italy, Romania, or the United Kingdom;
• The most notable countries that are situated in the same region and collaborate with each other are Germany and Italy, China and India, and Vietnam and Iran;
• With regard to collaborations between countries that have different cultural perspectives, being located in different regions, the most significant links are between China and the United States of America, and China and Australia;
• The most intense collaborations that can be seen in our analysis are represented by the links between the United States of America and China or the United Kingdom, and Vietnam and Iran.

3.4. Analysis of Literature

3.4.1. top 10 most cited papers—overview, 3.4.2. top 10 most cited papers—review, 3.4.3. words analysis, 3.4.4. mixed analysis, 4. discussions and limitations, 5. conclusions and policy recommendations, author contributions, data availability statement, conflicts of interest.

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Delcea, C.; Nica, I.; Ionescu, Ș.; Cibu, B.; Țibrea, H. Mapping the Frontier: A Bibliometric Analysis of Artificial Intelligence Applications in Local and Regional Studies. Algorithms 2024 , 17 , 418. https://doi.org/10.3390/a17090418

Delcea C, Nica I, Ionescu Ș, Cibu B, Țibrea H. Mapping the Frontier: A Bibliometric Analysis of Artificial Intelligence Applications in Local and Regional Studies. Algorithms . 2024; 17(9):418. https://doi.org/10.3390/a17090418

Delcea, Camelia, Ionuț Nica, Ștefan Ionescu, Bianca Cibu, and Horațiu Țibrea. 2024. "Mapping the Frontier: A Bibliometric Analysis of Artificial Intelligence Applications in Local and Regional Studies" Algorithms 17, no. 9: 418. https://doi.org/10.3390/a17090418

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