How Ethical Behavior Is Considered in Different Contexts: A Bibliometric Analysis of Global Research Trends

Abstract

In the past, sustainable development was considered a guideline for all human activities, but the world has gradually changed. The criteria for action today must not only ensure sustainability but also meet appropriate ethical standards in diverse contexts. As a result, the topic of ethical behavior has been studied more extensively in recent studies. Accordingly, through bibliometric approaches, this study seeks to generalize the issues of ethical behavior explored in a variety of contexts from 1991 to 2022. A total of 1409 articles were found and extracted from the Web of Science using the keywords “ethical behavior” and “context”; they were then decoded using VOSviewer software (version 1.6). Three techniques, including bibliographic coupling, co-citation, and co-occurrence were conducted to identify the six most influential contexts in ethical behavior. The results demonstrate that the six most influential contexts in ethical behavior are consumption, leadership, business, organization, medical, and education. The results further revealed that leading countries such as the USA and UK have a larger number of studies on ethical behavior in many different contexts, such as organization, business, education, health, consumption, and politics. The Journal of Business Ethics leads the way in research into ethical behavior, followed by the Journal of Applied Psychology.