A Systematic Review of Research Paradigms in the Journal of Management Spirituality and Religion

This study provides a systematic review of methodologies and research paradigms in the Journal of Management Spirituality and Religion (JMSR) in order to stimulate further development in spiritual research paradigms. To this end, we carry out a bibliometric analysis followed by a methodological analysis of JMSR articles over an 18-year period (2004-2021). Our bibliometric analysis finds that the main networks of JMSR authors form around editors and that international collaborations are predominated by Anglophone countries. Moreover, the most cited articles are either conceptual or quantitative studies restricted to positivist paradigms. Our methodological analysis discovers an “empirical turn” and a “qualitative gain” that reflect significant development of MSR research. Yet we find persistent dominance of positivism in the MSR domain and a lack of variety of non-positivist paradigms. We stress the need to create non-positivist evaluation criteria to support the quality of spiritual research paradigms. Lastly, we identify two promising spiritual research paradigms with philosophical and methodological implications.