Business ethics research in healthcare management : a systematic review

Abstract

This paper attempts to evaluate the trajectory of business ethics (BE) research in the realm of healthcare management (HCM) by conducting a quantitative analysis of the BE literature within the scope of HCM. We also aimed at understanding and elucidating the directions that the field was taking, the themes that have been researched, the methodological approaches that have been taken over time and emerging trends. Bibliometric analysis was employed for a systematic review of BE research in HCM. We used articles related to BE in HCM, published in leading BE and HCM journals indexed in SSCI. An overview of the study shows that the number of articles related to BE in the realm of HCM has been increasing and some specific themes have been receiving increasing attention from scientific community. Although there are abundant of empirical studies, advance statistical methods have been used rare. Accordingly, several noteworthy results raised from our analysis. The results of the study demonstrate how the progress of BE research in HCM is for policy makers, researchers, junior scholars and graduate students.