Innovative work behavior: researchers from China carried out a systematic review of a portfolio of 910 publications from Scopus database

• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/HRMID-03-2023-0057
• Published date: 15 May 2023
• Date: 15 May 2023
• Pages: 25-27
• Subject Matter: HR & organizational behaviour,Human resource policy,Employee welfare

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Innovative work behavior: researchers from

China carried out a systematic review of a

portfolio of 910 publications from

Scopus database

Researchers from China carried out a systematic review of a portfolio of 910

publications about innovative work behavior (IWB) from the Scopus database. They

identified the most prolific sources of IWB studies and listed several future

directions for research. The authors felt their analysis could serve as a “one-stop-shop” of

information to help scholars, or practitioners, identify peer-recognised publications and

communities of researchers.

They defined IWB as a “set of behavioural tasksthat help employees develop, promote and

implement new and innovative ideas.” It also refers to employees’ deliberate efforts to

provide new services/productsto improve practices. Over the past few years, the volume of

research into IWB has dramatically increased and they opted to use quantitative analysis.

They used science mapping with a bibliometric technique (BA) that analyses the different

field, disciplines, individualpapers and authors.

The authors wanted to answer thefollowing questions about IWB research:

Q1. What are current trends,methods and theories?

Q2. Which countries,regions and institutes publish the most?

Q3. Which are the mostinfluential authors?

Q4. Which are the mostinfluential publications?

Q5. What are the intellectuallinks of different authors, countries, regions,journals?

Q6. What are the key trendsand future directions?

The study used bibliographic data from the Scopus database –one of the largest - for

carrying out BA on IWB. The BA uses keywords to investigate details of research projects.

Words used included “innovative work behaviour,” “employee innovative behaviour” and

“individual innovation.” They looked for two indications –performance and science

mapping, before analysing resultswith VOSviewer and RStudio software tools.

Analysis was performed to find responsesto the above six questions:

1. What are current trends, methods and theories? There has been a sharp increase since

2013 fuelled by the launch of new journals and rising status of IWB research. There were

910 publications up to the end of 2021 with 2020 having the highest number at 191. The

complete data were not available at the time of writing for 2021, however, and the authors

expected it to easily surpass 2020.

Most studies employed surveys using questionnaires. A majority used cross-sectional

methods to gather information. A few used a mixed-method approach, but very few were

based on longitudinal studies. A range of theories was applied, although most used social

theories such as social exchangetheory, social cognitive theory and social identity theory.

DOI 10.1108/HRMID-03-2023-0057 VOL. 31 NO. 4 2023, pp. 25-27, ©Emerald Publishing Limited, ISSN 0967-0734 jHUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT INTERNATIONAL DIGEST jPAGE 25