Organizational Factors Correlated with Work Alienation: A Systematic Review

Abstract

Work alienation is a global concern for both public and private organizations. It has adverse effects on organizational productivity and individual performance. Academic scholars and practitioners have called for a systematic review to understand the factors behind this theoretical and practical problem. This study responds to these calls and aims to conduct a systematic review of potential organizational factors correlated with work alienation in both public and private organizations. The search engines that were used to find the study articles include Web of Science, Google Scholar, Scopus, PubMed, PsycINFO, JSTOR, ERIC, ScienceDirect, the Directory of Open Access Journals, ScienceOpen, and the Social Science Research Network (SSRN). Initially, 102 scientific articles were selected using the PRISMA methodology. After applying inclusion criteria 40 scientific papers were finally reviewed. The results of the study revealed that job design, organizational culture, workload, leadership styles, and career development opportunities are correlated with work alienation. The study suggests further review of studies on organizational factors correlated with work alienation using other forms of scientific knowledge that were not included in the study. Future studies in this direction can explore organizational factors using books, proceeding papers, and information extracted from seminars and conferences.