Psychological Ownership Theory in the Organizational Context: A Bibliometric and Meta-Analytic Review

Psychological ownership describes an individualâs state of mind which allows the individual to experience ownership feelings for a target regardless of legal ownership rights. This state of mind has been linked to various antecedents (e.g., participation, organizational justice perceptions) and consequences (e.g., job satisfaction, organizational citizenship behavior). Yet, after 30 years of research, psychological ownership theory in the organizational context is still in an emerging stage and lacks a structured approach. Therefore, I perform two structured reviews of psychological ownership theory presented in two essays. Essay 1 draws a bibliometric map of the literature on psychological ownership theory with an emphasis on co-authorship networks, citation networks, and keyword co-occurrence networks, and their respective development over the past 30 years. Essay 2 reviews the nomological network of psychological ownership theory, using various meta-analytic techniques. The meta-analyses explain how a climate for psychological ownership can be created in organizations, and whether the overall effect of employeesâ psychological ownership is positive or negative for organizations. Additionally, the boundary conditions of psychological ownership theory are examined. Relevant boundary conditions include the conceptualization, target, and measurement of psychological ownership, as well as common method bias, sample characteristics, and publication features. Implications for theory and practice are derived from the findings of both essays. The essays facilitate and promote scholarship on psychological ownership theory and demonstrate the value of this theory to practitioners