Unveiling the past, present and future of workplace spirituality research: a systematic literature review of 15 years

Abstract

Purpose

This study aims to explore the emergence of workplace spirituality (WPS) in Indian organisations through a systematic literature review by unwrapping the past, present and future state of WPS research in the Indian context. The data was covered for 15 years (2008–2023) and spread across 116 studies screened from Scopus, Web of Science and EBSCO.

Design/methodology/approach

Theory-context-characteristics-methods (TCCM) framework analysis and topic modelling (bidirectional encoder representations from transformers [BERT] analysis) techniques were adopted for a systematic exploration of theoretical underpinnings, contextual relevance, characteristic features and methodological rigour within the domain of WPS and analysis of the literature’s emerging trends and thematic patterns, respectively.

Findings

Using the TCCM framework, this study analysed the dominant theories applied in WPS literature within the Indian context, including social exchange theory and self-determination theory. In addition, this review highlights the key industries, variables and methodologies that have been the focus of prior research. Using BERT, this study clustered the textual data and identified three thematic patterns in the literature. By analysing past and current studies, this study identified potential gaps that future research could address, as guided by the TCCM framework.

Originality/value

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is one of the initial literature reviews focused on country-level studies adopting two techniques to bring more rigour: TCCM and BERT analysis.

Citation

Nayyar, R., Yadav, P., Baral, R., Raina, M. and Jena, L.K. (2024), "Unveiling the past, present and future of workplace spirituality research: a systematic literature review of 15 years", International Journal of Organizational Analysis, Vol. ahead-of-print No. ahead-of-print. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJOA-04-2024-4438