IMIB Journal of Innovation and Management

Exploring Work Passion in Optimising Employee’s Performance: A Bibliometric Analysis Systematic Literature Review Unifying 24 Years of Theoretical and Substantive Contribution (2000–2024)

Vandana Sharma¹ and Vidhu Vats¹

First Published 2 Jun 2025. https://doi.org/10.1177/ijim.251324357

Article Information

Corresponding Author:

Vidhu Vats, Department of Management Studies, Deenbandhu Chhotu Ram University of Science and Technology (DCRUST), Murthal, Sonipat, Haryana 131039, India.
Email: vidhuvats01@gmail.com

¹Department of Management Studies, Deenbandhu Chhotu Ram University of Science and Technology (DCRUST), Sonipat, Haryana, India

Creative Commons Non Commercial CC BY-NC: This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 License (http://www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits non-Commercial use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed.

Abstract

The notion of work passion has garnered noteworthy interest in the field of organisational research owing to its possible influence on the performance of employees. Through the combination of bibliometric analysis and a systematic literature review (SLR), spanning a 24-year period (2000–2024), this study seeks to investigate the link between work passion and employee performance, and a solid synthesis of the field’s theoretical and empirical contributions, key writers, significant works and new trends is identified by the bibliometric analysis, which charts the research landscape.

We conducted a comprehensive study utilising both bibliometric and SLR. Our investigation involved analysing a sample of 176 relevant documents identified from the Scopus database from the years 2000 till June 2024. PRISMA guidelines were used while creating the analysis. Then, we used Biblioshiny, RStudio software, to analyse and visualise connections between papers and researchers through network diagrams. Content analysis was done to identify the recent trends.

The bibliometric findings reveal ‘Marina N Astakhova’ as the most productive and efficient author who has made substantial contributions to work passion research. Additionally, China stands at the forefront of work passion studies, with their researchers leading the way. Frontiers in Psychology is the major journal in the field of work passion. Distinct thematic clusters were identified, representing various research dimensions within the realm of work passion.

The scope of our literature selection is confined to a limited source, namely the Scopus database. This restriction may have excluded relevant studies published in other sources, potentially affecting the comprehensiveness of our findings. The research offers significant understandings into the connection between employee performance and work passion; nevertheless, these constraints must be taken into account when applying the findings to the Indian setting.

Keywords

Work passion, job performance, bibliometrics analysis, systematic literature review, well-being, job engagement

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