Remote Work and Job Satisfaction: A Decade of Insights Through a Bibliometric Lens

Abstract

This study analyzes the relationship between remote work and job satisfaction from a bibliometric perspective. Remote work has grown in popularity, especially due to global trends accelerated by the pandemic, which impacts employee safety, wellbeing, and satisfaction. Based on 199 articles indexed in Scopus from 2014 to 2024, we identified a steady growth of this topic, with significant increases between 2021 and 2023. Global collaboration analysis indicates that the United States, India, and the United Kingdom are at the forefront of research and should work towards bridging knowledge across the Global North and South. We identify factors related to the satisfaction of remote workers (balance between on-site and off-site work, autonomy, flexibility, social isolation, gender differences). A keyword co-occurrence analysis was conducted to identify topical coverage and was complemented by clustering highly cited studies. We examine differences between the public and private sectors and suggest research paths to better understand the implications of remote work for job satisfaction in different organizational contexts.

1. Introduction

Remote work, once considered an out-of-the-mainstream practice, has become universally adopted over the last decade, with unprecedented momentum due to the COVID-19 pandemic. According to a 2021 International Labor Organization (ILO) report, more than 560 million workers worldwide were forced to work from home during the pandemic, representing nearly 17.4% of the global workforce. Recent studies have shown that this transformation is not only temporary but has reshaped global labor markets in a lasting way, making it a major focus of management and organizational research (Wang et al., 2021; Parikh & Pirani, 2025; Brady & Prentice, 2025). This sudden change has led to radical alterations in the character of work, as viewed by employees and businesses, giving rise to fierce debates on productivity, psychological wellbeing, and especially job satisfaction. In some countries, such as the United States, around 22% of workers have continued to work remotely on a regular basis after the pandemic, highlighting the permanence of this new form of work organization.

While many employees appreciate the flexibility offered by remote work, others emphasize the challenges that it presents, such as social isolation, the difficulty in maintaining a work–life balance, and even the impact on relationships within work teams. It is in this context that the study of job satisfaction becomes crucial. Job satisfaction, although it is a multidimensional concept, is generally understood as an individual’s overall attitude toward their job, and it is influenced by various psychological, social, and organizational factors. However, recent contributions argue that existing knowledge remains fragmented and context dependent, which reinforces the need for a comprehensive synthesis (Kraus et al., 2020).

Historically, the relationship between remote work and job satisfaction has generated moderate interest in academic and professional circles. However, with the global adoption of remote work, this relationship has become a central focus of current research, covering the fields of work psychology, human resource management, and organizational management. Initial studies pointed toward an improvement in worker satisfaction due to greater flexibility and independence (Lu & Zhuang, 2023). However, contemporary findings have a balanced trend, as studies have identified flaws such as loneliness and imbalances between genders in terms of domestic work. This divergence in findings highlights the need to clarify the conditions under which remote work enhances or reduces satisfaction, a gap that bibliometric analysis can help address by mapping trends, clusters, and determinants across a decade of publications (Carillo et al., 2021).

The aim of this study is to analyze the evolution of scientific research on remote work and job satisfaction by employing a bibliometric approach and considering scientific articles published between 2014 and 2024. By doing so, this research responds to recent calls for systematic reviews capable of integrating multidisciplinary insights and providing clearer theoretical directions for future research (Donthu et al., 2021). We focus on identifying key trends, the most efficient countries in this field of study, and the ensuing global collaborations. This research aims to shed light on the global dynamics that shape this field of study and to present new concepts for future research.

The objectives of this study are to provide a rigorous synthesis of publications on the link between remote work and professional satisfaction, to determine the main influential factors identified in the literature, and to highlight the theoretical or empirical gaps to be filled in future research. In line with this objective, we also formulate the following guiding research questions to strengthen the red thread in this paper: What are the global trends in publications on remote work and job satisfaction over the last decade? Which countries, collaborations, and journals are most influential in this field? What determinants and conceptual domains emerge as central to explaining job satisfaction among remote workers?

2. Review Protocol, Design, and Structure

The relation between remote work and professional satisfaction has been extensively explored in numerous academic studies within an expanding domain. Nonetheless, co-thematic research remains nascent and has yet to be thoroughly investigated. Consequently, in accordance with Chakma et al. (2021), we employed a hybrid integrated review that amalgamated bibliometric analysis with a framework-based review. In our research, we employed the four Ws (What, Where When, and Why; hereafter, 4Ws) to enhance the structure of this review. Chakma et al. (2021) assert that the analytical synthesis of previous research facilitates topic development, aids scholars in acquiring contemporary insights into a particular study subject and assists in pinpointing research deficiencies. Therefore, performing a hybrid review yields a more comprehensive comprehension of research on remote work and professional satisfaction and facilitates the identification of future research directions.

Protocols play a vital role in systematic literature reviews because they ensure careful planning, consistent implementation, and transparency, thereby allowing replication. Only a limited number of protocols exist for conducting bibliometric reviews. In our study, we followed the framework proposed by Öztürk et al. (2024), which is designed in four stages: defining the aim of the research, collecting data on the relevant literature, analysis and visualization, and interpretation of the findings and results. Figure 1 illustrates the model’s structure. In the following section, we present the work completed in each step of the protocol.

The first primary stage, “defining the aim of the research,” contains four substages. The first and second substages involve the designation of the aim of the research and the expected results, which, in this case, are not limited to a descriptive bibliometric analysis but extend to reveal the conceptual development in the field and the evolution of the literature on remote work and job satisfaction, resulting in the construction of a research agenda on the subject. Then, in the third substage, the following research question is formulated: “What is the global trend of scientific publication on remote work and job satisfaction?”. Finally, we define the scope and focus of the research, which includes performance analysis, scientific mapping, network analysis, and antecedent analysis.

In the second primary stage, “collecting data on the relevant literature,” we began with the data collection using the Scopus database, in accordance with prior studies (Ahmed et al., 2022; Alshater et al., 2021; Baker et al., 2020). This database was utilized for several reasons. Firstly, it constitutes one of the greatest multidisciplinary repositories of peer-reviewed scholarly literature. Secondly, it ranks among the most accessible databases cataloging the most esteemed journals in the finance domain (Ahmed et al., 2022). Third, it offers users sophisticated search functionalities and diverse features for bibliometric analysis, including the ability to export bibliographical data tailored to users’ requirements. For the “initial search process,” we chose to limit our process of identifying articles to the period from January 2014 to November 2024, the time of our data collection. We utilized a wide range of search terms derived from prior reviews (e.g., Goodell et al., 2021; Wu et al., 2020), which included the following: “remote work” OR “telecommuting” OR “teleworking” OR “work from home” OR “home-based work” OR “virtual work” OR “distributed work” OR “hybrid work”; “job satisfaction” OR “employee satisfaction” OR “work satisfaction.” A total of 824 results were generated. In the “filtering” substage, only original papers written in English were selected. We defined “original papers” as peer-reviewed journal articles presenting primary research findings directly related to remote work and job satisfaction. We applied Scopus filters to exclude “retracted” and “retracted article” records and to limit the corpus to articles only, excluding errata, retraction notices, editorials, notes, books, and conference items. Then, we used the CiteSpace software (Version 6.3.R3) to remove duplicate papers. To guarantee the scientific quality of the dataset, only original peer-reviewed journal articles were retained, as these publications undergo a formal evaluation process before acceptance. All other sources (conference papers, books, editorials, reviews, retracted publications, and non-English documents) were excluded. The screening was conducted independently by three researchers, and disagreements were resolved through discussion. This filtering phase allowed us to exclude 625 papers and to keep 199 others, which constituted the final basis of our bibliometric analysis.

During the analysis and visualization phase, we employed bibliometrics to identify the essential quantitative characteristics related to a particular field of study (Junquera & Mitre, 2007). This methodology allowed us to verify crucial information related to the research topic, such as the evolution of the number of publications per year and the most productive countries. The use of the VOSviewer software (Version 1.6.20), an online software offering a user-friendly and easy-to-use interface, made it possible to analyze the correlations between variables (employability and digitalization) and data from different countries and journals. Moreover, the software includes a conceptual map and identifies currently popular topics. In addition, the use of the CiteSpace software made it possible to identify the cluster with the most pronounced level of activity. The results generated by Citespace are presented in Appendix A. Furthermore, the 4Ws approach helped answer our theoretical research question.

The fifth section of our article (“Avenues for Future Research”) and the conclusion present the results of the fourth phase, interpreting the findings and results.

3. Results of the Bibliometric Analysis: Performance Analysis and Scientific Mapping

In this section, we describe the use of a bibliometric analysis to methodically map the scientific landscape, building on insights described in Section 3.2 and Section 3.3, which examine the application domains and evolution of remote work and job satisfaction, as well as the important aspects influencing them. By using this method, we measure publication trends, pinpoint significant writers and journals, and find thematic clusters that represent the “Where,” “When,” and “Why” of the research in this field. We offer a more thorough knowledge of the evolution and present status of research on remote work and job satisfaction by combining qualitative insights from the literature review with quantitative bibliometric information. The “Results” section presents the main findings of the bibliometric analysis conducted on the relationship between remote work and job satisfaction. Using data from the Scopus database (2014–2024), we examined publication trends, country contributions, and journal networks. The figures were generated with CiteSpace and VOSviewer, two widely used tools for scientific mapping and visualization.

3.1. Number of Publications per Year

The graph shown in Figure 2 illustrates the growth of the number of publications in the Scopus database between 2014 and 2024. The graph shows a series of significant trends in scientific production on the topic of the relationship between remote work and job satisfaction. Between 2014 and 2017, interest in this relationship had not yet gained momentum, and the publication count remained constant at six articles per year. Starting in 2018, however, a strong rise in the publication count could be observed. The number of articles rose from 6 in 2017 to 12 in 2018 and to 13 in 2019 and 2020, thus indicating a moderate boost in interest in this research topic. The momentum continued to increase in 2021, with 20 publications. This trend was strengthened even further in 2022, when the number of articles was 35. A new high was recorded in 2023 with 46 publications, and this acceleration continued with 36 papers until November 2024. This sudden increase in the number of publications from 2021 onwards is largely explained by the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, which radically changed work habits all over the world.

3.2. Contributions to the Research by Country

Figure 3 shows the contributions of the countries with the most research on the relationship between job satisfaction and remote work. Nodes represent countries, and edges indicate collaboration links; the map was generated in VOSviewer using fractionalization normalization. The United States tops the list with an exceptional scientific output of 38 papers, next to India (18 papers) and Germany (15 papers). Although these countries lead in terms of quantity, other nations, such as the United Kingdom, also demonstrate notable influence with many citations, indicating the robust impact of their contributions to the field. Simultaneously, contributions to international cooperations are made by other countries, such as Italy, Australia, and Saudi Arabia. This collaboration improves cooperation in the exchange of knowledge and research on remote work, a theme that is becoming increasingly central in the post-pandemic era. In terms of citation counts, the United States, the United Kingdom, and India stand out as the most influential, confirming that their contributions are not only numerous but are also widely recognized within the academic community.

Figure 4 shows a network of scientific collaborations between different countries. The colors represent collaboration clusters, while the size of the nodes and the thickness of the links indicate the importance and strength of the connections, respectively. The red cluster centered around the United States shows that this country, as a global leader in research and innovation, has built strong ties with countries such as China, Australia, and South Korea. This can be explained by the importance of academic exchanges between these nations, as well as by strategic partnerships in the field of new technologies and the digital transformation of work. The United States has thus been a key player in accelerating remote work through its scientific contributions while also strengthening collaborations with countries that have rapidly growing technology industries.

The green cluster, which depicts the significant collaborations between the United Kingdom, India, and several European countries, reflects another dynamic. The United Kingdom, historically linked to India through academic and economic relations, continues to exert notable influence in this field. Moreover, its strong collaborations with countries such as Italy and Cyprus can be explained by the increased research in Europe on the effects of remote work and the adaptation of work systems in the post-COVID context, a subject that has become essential for companies seeking to maintain employee satisfaction through flexible working methods. These European collaborations demonstrate regional synergy on issues related to the transformation of working conditions.

Finally, clusters such as that between Germany and the Netherlands show strong bilateral partnerships, which are probably due to geographical proximity and the shared orientation toward the digitalization of their economies.

3.3. Review and Analysis

Figure 5 presents clusters that reflect interconnected disciplines where applied psychology, human resource management, occupational health, and behavioral sciences intersect to analyze behaviors and processes within organizations. Each node represents a journal, and edges denote co-citations; visualization was created in CiteSpace using cosine similarity. Each color is used to group journals that are frequently co-cited because they address complementary themes, such as employee wellbeing, talent management, and the impact of organizational practices on performance. This network highlights the importance of interdisciplinary collaborations in better understanding the complex dynamics of the world of work.

The collaborations between academic journals represented by the clusters in this image can be explained by thematic and methodological convergences within the studied disciplines. Each cluster brings together journals that, although specialized, share common areas of interest, which leads to strong co-citation among them.

The red cluster around the Journal of Applied Psychology includes journals dealing with applied psychology and organizational behavior. These collaborations are explained by the fact that these studies focus on how individual behaviors and organizational dynamics influence employee performance and satisfaction. These themes are essential not only in the field of psychology but also in management, hence the strong interaction with management journals such as the Journal of Management. Human resource management and applied psychology naturally converge in the study of productivity, motivation, and wellbeing at work.

Similarly, the green and blue clusters group journals that focus on more specific aspects, such as human resource management and occupational health psychology. Researchers in these fields frequently collaborate because issues of wellbeing, talent management, and the improvement of working conditions converge in many ways, particularly in the era of remote work and the digitalization of work environments. These collaborations are also driven by cross-cutting issues that concern both the public sector (as shown by the purple cluster with public management journals) and the private sector.

As shown in

Table 1. Top 10 most frequently co-cited journals in the field of job satisfaction and remote work.

Rank	Journal	Main Discipline	Cluster Color
1	Journal of Applied Psychology	Applied Psychology	Red
2	Journal of Management	Management	Red
3	Human Resource Management Journal	Human Resource Management	Green
4	Journal of Occupational Health Psychology	Occupational Health	Blue
5	Academy of Management Journal	General Management	Red
6	Personnel Psychology	Work Psychology	Red
7	Human Relations	Organizational Behavior	Green
8	Public Administration Review	Public Management	Purple
9	International Journal of Human Resource Management	International HRM	Green
10	Work & Stress	Health & Well-being	Blue

, the top ten most frequently co-cited journals illustrate the interdisciplinary nature of research on remote work and job satisfaction, bridging applied psychology, management, and human resource studies.

Beyond mapping publication trends, country contributions, and co-citation networks, our bibliometric analysis also highlighted some specific determinants of satisfaction among remote workers. Most of the determinants surfaced through the keyword co-occurrence analysis, which numbered concepts that emerged again and again, such as work–life balance, autonomy, and flexibility. Additionally, when these themes emerged, they were also emphasized by the most frequently cited studies in the bibliometric mapping, reaffirming the significance of these determinants of job satisfaction in the context of remote work. For instance, social isolation and gender differences in work allocation seemed to appear more clearly in the qualitative syntheses of prominent articles. By triangulating the keyword co-occurrence findings with the perspective of the most cited articles included in the bibliometric mapping, we were able to arrive at and emphasize these determinants as the core explanatory variables that connected the bibliometric mapping with the conceptualization of satisfaction experienced by remote workers. Alongside the apparent insight into recurring and key determinants of remote worker job satisfaction, we also outlined a basis for discussing future research. Thus, the following section uses this foundation and these insights to consider how existing knowledge might be expanded by considering dimensions that were not sufficiently illuminated, such as the contexts of culture and sector, the continuing effects of COVID-19, and new work requirements.

4. Antecedent (4Ws)

4.1. Conceptualization (“What”)

Although the concept of remote work is not new, its adoption experienced a notable expansion beginning in 2020 in response to the health crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic (Alam & Dewi, 2024). This sudden evolution highlighted the diversity of forms that remote work can take, making it difficult to establish a single universal definition (Bellmann & Hübler, 2021). Indeed, the way in which remote work is implemented depends on multiple factors—notably, the nature of professional activities, the technologies used, and employees’ preferences and situations (Vayre, 2016). Thus, it is necessary to position the definition of remote work within three distinct periods: before, at the time of, and after the global health crisis. This will allow for not only a better understanding of the evolution of the term but also the recognition of its drivers that influenced its development and its impact on organizational practices.

Before the pandemic, remote work was mainly described by Nilles (1994) as a form of work done outside the traditional workplace with communication aided by information and communication technologies (ICTs). This definition highlights two main factors: the use of technology to maintain communication and physical distance from the classic workplace. Vayre (2016) later clarified this definition by stating that it is all professional work done wholly or partially at a distance, outside the employer’s territory, for at least one day per week, and it is based on ICTs. This definition includes three important criteria: geographical distance from the workplace, the frequency of distant work, and the utilization of ICTs as an essential tool for communication and the accomplishment of tasks. These definitions, despite evolving, share common principles that transcend industrial sectors and geographic contexts, underlining remote work as a form of work organization where the use of technology enables professional tasks to be carried out outside the employer’s premises on a regular basis (Solís, 2017).

Remote work has experienced unprecedented growth since the global health crisis. Between January and March 2020, most governments ordered the closure of business premises while encouraging companies to maintain their activities by temporarily resorting to remote work. Faced with this situation, many companies were forced to rapidly implement remote work as a provisional solution, often without prior preparation and in an uncertain context, to ensure the continuity of their operations. According to Fuhrer (2023), “during the lockdown, working from home was—when possible—the mandatory mode of work. This remote work was sudden for most, mandatory and unplanned”. Barrero et al. (2021) highlighted an increase in the rate of remote work from 5% to 50% during the crisis in the United States. All of these researchers presented their definitions by emphasizing the term “forced remote work”, which characterizes the definitions from this period, in addition to them being “unplanned, unanticipated”.

After the COVID-19 pandemic, organizations were led to rethink their work organization methods. They moved from imposed and unprepared remote work to hybrid work models, which have become well-structured and planned (Lauzier et al., 2023). Remote work has profoundly transformed the labor market by promoting greater flexibility, improved efficiency, and increased sustainability (Taboroši et al., 2022). However, as with any major change, this mode of work, despite offering many advantages, also raises considerable challenges on both an individual and an organizational level.

Table 2. Definitions of job satisfaction.

Authors	Year	Definition
Hoppock	1935	A combination of psychological, physiological, and environmental characteristics of work that leads a person to express satisfaction or dissatisfaction.
(Locke, 1976) (most frequently cited)	1976	A positive or pleasant emotional state resulting from the appraisal that a person makes of their job or job experiences.
Robbins	2001	The general attitude of an individual toward work.
(Weiss, 2002)	2002	The result of whether or not workers like their jobs and, by doing them, develop a sense of wellbeing.
Armstrong	2006	The attitudes and feelings that individuals have toward their jobs.
Paillé	2008	The result of the appraisal a person makes about their job or job situation.
Fernández-Macias and Muñozde Bustillo Llorente	2014	The degree to which people like their jobs.

summarizes the most significant definitions across the three periods.

According to previous studies, it has been shown that remote work can have both positive and negative consequences, depending on the profiles of remote workers, the dimensions of work quality assessed, employer support, personal preferences, and family structure; among these consequences, the effect on job satisfaction is one of the most frequently studied (Smith et al., 2018; Zöllner & Sulíková, 2021; Margheritti et al., 2024). We will first present the different definitions of this concept, as the scientific literature reveals a consensus on the absence of a universal definition of job satisfaction, which has led to the emergence of multiple distinct definitions.

These variations in definitions reflect the complexity of the concept, which is often influenced by contextual and individual factors.

4.2. The Application Domains of the Relationship Between Remote Work and Job Satisfaction (“Where”)

Research on remote work and job satisfaction has been conducted in various fields of activity and areas of study. This relationship has fascinated scholars in a broad array of disciplines, such as economics, psychology, management, and the sociology of work. Karácsony (2021) examined the impact of remote work on Slovak employees during the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in Slovakia. The results reveal a clearly positive effect of remote work on employees’ job satisfaction. In particular, the relationship between managers and subordinates improved, while the balance between professional and personal lives also evolved positively. Lu and Zhuang (2023) empirically examined the effects of remote work on workers’ enjoyment during daily work episodes and on job satisfaction in the United Kingdom. Their study led to two major findings. First, among men, remote workers tend to have higher levels of job enjoyment and job satisfaction, which is not the case among women. Second, approximately 46% of the positive effects of remote work on men’s job satisfaction can be explained by higher levels of job enjoyment. Zöllner and Sulíková (2021) conducted a literature review on the risks that employees face and the impact of remote work on their job satisfaction. This research showed that an increase in the frequency of remote work has a positive effect on job satisfaction. However, certain negative aspects, such as social and professional isolation, as well as perceived threats to career advancement, were also highlighted. Sector-specific studies add further nuance. Capecchi and Caputo (2022) showed that public administration employees in Italy experience greater job satisfaction when working from home, while the presence of children in the household significantly affects work–life balance. In the public sector, Barbieri et al. (2025) confirmed the positive effect of flexible scheduling on both job satisfaction and home-based performance. Conversely, Mousa et al. (2025) identified several obstacles to remote work in the Egyptian public sector, including limited employee discretion, citizens’ lack of familiarity with digital services, and insufficient infrastructure. Finally, Ruželė et al. (2024) examined the banking sector and found that remote work influences job satisfaction, engagement, task performance, contextual performance, and counterproductive work behaviors.

4.3. The Evolution of Research on Remote Work (“When”)

The notion of remote work was first introduced in the 1970s by Jack Nilles (Nilles, 1994). Although its use increased during the 1980s, it remained below researchers’ expectations. Faced with the unprecedented COVID-19 crisis, companies were compelled to act fast by adopting new management practices, which greatly accelerated the development of remote work (Frimousse & Peretti, 2021). Remote work, as defined by Scaillerez and Tremblay (2016), boasts high future expansion prospects in the coming years, potentially involving up to 30% of the labor force in developed countries.

In recent years, a notable wave of research has explored the relationship between remote work and job satisfaction, particularly during and after the pandemic (Zöllner & Sulíková, 2021; Margheritti et al., 2024).

4.4. The Relationship Between Remote Work and Job Satisfaction (“Why”)

During the period of widespread contagion in the COVID-19 pandemic, governments and organizations encouraged remote work with the aim of improving professional performance and promoting a better work–life balance by offering greater flexibility and allowing for better reconciliation of both spheres. However, the debate continues as to whether remote work truly improves job satisfaction and other aspects of subjective wellbeing. In fact, theoretical predictions and empirical results concerning remote workers’ satisfaction and job enjoyment are often contradictory. Research indicates that remote work presents both advantages and disadvantages. On the one hand, it can offer benefits such as increased self-efficacy related to working from home, better satisfaction, and enhanced performance. On the other hand, it can generate risks, such as professional isolation, which may negatively impact workers. Moreover, gender inequalities persist both within households and in the labor market, with women devoting more time to household chores and childcare and less time to full-time work compared with men (Kan & Laurie, 2018).

5. Avenues for Future Research

Not only are these bibliometric patterns descriptive, but they also reveal important dynamics in the field. The increase in publications illustrates how remote work became a strategic topic in management research after the pandemic. The concentration of research leadership in the United States, India, and the United Kingdom suggests asymmetries in global knowledge production, raising questions about inclusivity and knowledge transfer across regions. Finally, the identified clusters point to emerging theoretical frameworks, offering guidance for future studies.

Based on the articles in the literature review, we formulated specific recommendations to guide future research. Since the COVID-19 health crisis, our knowledge of remote work has significantly progressed. By relying on the analysis of co-citation group timelines and the 4Ws, we have identified several topics—as shown in Figure 6 and Figure 7—that deserve to be further explored.

Figure 6 presents the main thematic clusters that structured the literature on remote work and job satisfaction between 2014 and 2024. Clusters illustrate current research themes, node size reflects topic frequency, and colors indicate thematic groups generated in VOSviewer. These clusters, such as worker wellbeing, home-based work during the pandemic, job demand, and integrated empirical frameworks, illustrate how research topics have been organized and consolidated over time. To complement this representation, Figure 7 highlights the clusters that are expected to become future research trends, indicating new directions, such as meta-analytic evidence, teaching staff, and individual performance. Clusters display emerging research trends; node proximity shows thematic similarity, visualized with CiteSpace timeline mapping. By combining the insights from both figures, our analysis demonstrates how current themes progressively evolve into emerging research avenues. This dual perspective provides a clearer understanding of the continuity between past studies and potential future investigations, which is further developed in the following discussion.

5.1. Wellbeing at Work

Remote work and its impacts on job satisfaction, as well as on employee wellbeing, are highly topical subjects (Giang et al., 2024; Bellmann & Hübler, 2021). Although several studies have highlighted the positive and negative effects of remote work on these dimensions, especially for human resource managers, it remains essential for future research to broaden the analytical framework by integrating additional variables and concepts to better understand this complex relationship. One promising avenue for deepening this research would be to examine the impact of national culture on the remote work experience and its effects on wellbeing at work.

Our keyword co-occurrence mapping indicates that our key concepts—such as remote work and job satisfaction—are frequently associated with notions of stress or work–life balance, but they are rarely linked to cultural dimensions. Although a few recent articles have attempted to examine the role of organizational culture, the results of our study reveal a marked underrepresentation of research integrating the variable “national culture” into analyses. This gap suggests the need to further investigate the influence of national cultural contexts on the experience of remote work and job satisfaction.

To date, although studies have explored this relationship in various contexts such as Japan, the United Kingdom, and Canada, the influence of cultural dimensions remains underexplored. For example, a study conducted by Araki and Rappleye (2024) in Japan showed that Japanese employees’ job satisfaction remained high even after their return to the office, suggesting that cultural factors, such as commitment to the company, sense of duty, and intensive work culture, may shape this relationship. Schwoerer et al. (2024) demonstrated that cultural factors significantly influence employee satisfaction at three levels—organizational, national, and individual—which highlights the importance of conducting further research on this topic.

Apart from the cultural aspect, there is little research that has specifically focused on the distinctions between the private and public sectors, as well as their specific characteristics. Indeed, existing works primarily focus on public structures (Capecchi & Caputo, 2022; Mousa et al., 2025), which highlights the importance for future studies to explore the private sector in more detail, as it is still largely unexplored in its specificities. Moreover, remote work in the public sector is often subject to strict regulations and is characterized by more pronounced job security than in the private sector. It would, therefore, be wise for research to take a comparative approach—both sectoral and international—to better understand how structural and institutional disparities between countries affect the link between remote work and job satisfaction.

5.2. Post-COVID-19 Remote Work

Research conducted in various countries has highlighted the negative effects of remote work during the pandemic on physical and mental health, wellbeing, job satisfaction, work–life balance, and productivity (Xiao et al., 2021; Oakman et al., 2020; Kinman et al., 2020; Papanikolaou & Schmidt, 2022). These effects can be explained by the forced nature of remote work, as well as the overload experienced by families, especially those with children, who had to juggle professional and family responsibilities. Given these findings, it is essential to investigate whether such negative effects have persisted in the post-pandemic context, especially now that remote work is more often a choice than a necessity. Some companies have taken steps to improve working conditions at home—for example, by providing comfortable chairs. It would be relevant for future research to evaluate whether these efforts have helped mitigate the initially observed negative effects.

Moreover, one aspect that is likely to persist is the feeling of isolation, the impact of which can vary significantly from person to person. To prevent or reduce this feeling of isolation, companies can adopt various strategies, such as organizing regular meetings (in-person or virtual) and implementing personal and professional development programs. It is essential that future research examines the effectiveness of these measures in reducing isolation. These studies could evaluate whether such precautions effectively decrease the feeling of isolation among workers while taking individual differences into account. Such an investigation would be crucial for adjusting corporate support policies and for providing a more balanced and inclusive work environment, even in the context of prolonged remote work.

5.3. New Work Requirements

The COVID-19 crisis was a catalyst for remote work. However, three years after the beginning of the pandemic, some companies had chosen to return to on-site work. For example, in 2022, Tesla required its employees to return to the office full-time. Other companies, such as Apple, opted for a hybrid model, where they asked employees to work in the office at least three days per week. This hybrid model has been adopted by many companies, especially when the physical presence of certain employees is considered necessary, particularly those in direct contact with clients. For example, Bank of America also reintroduced on-site work for certain critical functions.

Employees holding strategic or specific positions are also often expected to follow the traditional mode of work. Furthermore, recent studies have begun to examine the relationship between remote work and job satisfaction in greater detail, taking the specificity of job roles into account. For instance, the study by Giang et al. (2024) explores the impact of remote work on specific professions. Future research will need to deepen the understanding of the effects of different types of positions and of the hybrid model, as few studies have examined the relationship between this work model and employee satisfaction, as well as the effects of returning to the office.

One promising avenue for research is the exploration of the use of e-HRM (electronic human resource management). The pandemic forced companies to reevaluate and adapt their HR management practices in a hurried manner without prior preparation. In developed countries, many companies began adopting e-HRM softwares to facilitate the management of remote workers. However, few studies have examined the impact of these tools on job satisfaction. It is, therefore, crucial to conduct in-depth research to understand how e-HRM influences employee satisfaction, particularly in the context of remote work.

6. Conclusions

This study underscores that more studies need to be conducted on the psychological, organizational, and social dimensions of remote work while considering cultural specificities and sectoral contexts. Furthermore, the results highlight the importance of developing appropriate organizational measures to derive maximum benefit from remote work with minimal disadvantages and to promote sustainable employee satisfaction within this new work environment.

Our bibliometric results show that worker wellbeing, home-based work during the COVID-19 pandemic, and job demand represent the main themes structuring this research field. These findings suggest that future organizational practices should focus on mitigating isolation, supporting work–life balance, and redesigning job roles to align with hybrid and remote arrangements. In addition, the identification of clusters related to teaching staff, individual performance, and meta-analytic evidence highlights the need for sector-specific analyses and comparative approaches across industries and professions. Another key insight from our results is the strong involvement of countries such as the United States, India, and Germany, which indicates that international collaboration and cross-cultural perspectives are crucial to developing sustainable models of remote work.

Thus, this analysis contributes to a better understanding of the dynamics related to remote work and opens new research perspectives on ways to improve the wellbeing of remote workers, considering the rapid changes in professional environments and employee needs. By linking past research clusters with future trends, our study also provides a roadmap for scholars to explore underexamined areas, such as the impact of e-HRM systems, the role of national culture, and the long-term effects of hybrid work models on job satisfaction.

Our results encourage companies to establish remote work management policies such as providing leadership training for remote supervision, means of preventing isolation, support for work–life balance, and adjustment of digital tools (such as e-HR solutions) to promote employee performance and satisfaction. For government officials, it is essential to establish a precise legal framework regarding mental health at work, as well as fiscal or operational incentives that promote hybrid models.