Workplace Ostracism: Mapping the Global Research Landscape, Emerging Themes, and Future Directions

Abstract

Workplace ostracism, defined as the isolation or social rejection of employees within an organization, has received a lot of attention in studies because of its profound effect on employee well-being, performance, and organizational outcomes. This study presents a bibliometric analysis of 467 Scopus-indexed journal articles and reviews retrieved using the keyword "Workplace Ostracism," with data up to June 2026, following a PRISMA-guided screening process (Page et al., 2021). Using the performance-analysis techniques suggested for bibliometric studies in management research (Donthu, Kumar, Mukherjee, Pandey, & Lim, 2021), the study addresses seven research questions covering annual publication trends, subject-area and document-type distribution, country and institutional contribution, author productivity, funding patterns, journal-level trends, keyword network and country-level citation patterns. The findings support the exponential increase of WO scholarship since 2015, the domination of the fields of business, management, and psychology, the concentration of output in China and Pakistan, and the substantial reliance on a few highly productive authors, institutions, and funding agencies. The report concludes by mapping these results back onto each research question and discussing the implications for researchers positioning new WO studies within the present trajectory of the field.