The Future of Knowledge Workers Studies: A Scientometric Analysis of Research Based on Web of Science Database During 1938-2021

This study aims to develop a comprehensive bibliometric overview of the publications on knowledge workers from the Web of Science database (WOS). The current research is of an applied type and has been carried out using scientometric methods and co-authorship and synonym analysis techniques. In this regard, 1609 scientific papers on knowledge workers were bibliometric analyzed in a descriptive-analytical study. A graphical mapping of the bibliometric material by using the visualization of similarities (VOS) viewer software has been developed in this work. The retrieved papers cover the years from 1938 to 2021. The results indicate an upward trend in the publication in the last ten years. This research demonstrated that keywords changed over time from focusing on key differences between knowledge workers and others to psychological factors related to employees and motivational factors. This study is one of the first attempts to summarize knowledge workers and suggests future research directions.