Positive Organizational Psychology: A Bibliometric Review and Science Mapping Analysis

Abstract

Positive organizational psychology (POP) is a research area that focuses on the positive aspects of optimal functioning at work. Although consolidated and with a large volume of publications, no bibliometric analysis has been performed that allows knowing its high-level structure, developments, and distribution of knowledge since its origins. The objective is to analyze the 7181 articles published in POP on the Web of Science Core Collection (WoSCC). A retrospective bibliometric analysis and science mapping were performed. The title, authors, institutions, countries, scientific categories, journals, keywords, year, and citations were extracted from WoSCC. Impact factor, quartile, and country were collected from Journal Citation Reports (JCR) 2019. Authors were classified according to the proposal of Crane, and Bradford’s law was calculated. The results show that it is an area with more than 100 years of experience, divided into three stages of different productivity and visibility, highlighting a decrease in its visibility in recent years. With a multidisciplinary and international interest, psychology and business and economics stand out, especially in countries such as the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Netherlands. Four popular study topics emerged: well-being at work, positive leadership, work engagement, and psychological capital.

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“…Positive psychology emerged in the late 1990s to counterbalance the dominating psychopathological focus of the time (1). In the 22 years since its inception, positive psychology's strive to apply the scientific method to investigate the positive states, -traits, and -behaviors that enhance mental health, has spawned a magnitude of new theories, models and constructs (2,3). The growth of the discipline resulted in a rapid rise in the development and use of "positive psychological assessment measures" (PPAMs) aimed at measuring these positive psychological constructs validly and reliably (4).…”

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“…Research in POP has shown exponential growth over the past 5 years ( Martín-del-Río et al, 2021 ). This exponential growth may indicate that the discipline is on the horizon of a new wave of research, innovation and ideas, which may fundamentally alter its discourse.…”

“…Positive psychology has emerged as one of the most rapid-growing sub-disciplines in psychology ( Martín-del-Río et al, 2021 ). During its first decade as a stand-alone science, positive psychological research has grown to account for 4% of all research conducted and published in psychology ( Rusk and Waters, 2013 ).…”

“…However, most publications (18.74%) seemed to be related to positive psychology at work (categorized as “management psychology” −10.88% and “business” −7.68%; Rusk and Waters, 2013 ). The popularity of positive psychology at work has since increased exponentially within the literature, with around 5,880 manuscripts (totaling 66,635 citations; Martín-del-Río et al, 2021 ). This groundswell of interest into understanding, measuring, managing and developing positive aspects of work is aptly labeled “Positive Organizational Psychology” (POP; Donaldson and Ko, 2010 ).…”

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