LEADERSHIP IN THE GLOBAL CONTEXT: BIBLIOMETRIC AND THEMATIC PATTERNS OF AN EVOLVING FIELD

In recent years, researchers in the global leadership domain are trying to understand the nature of the evolution of the field in order to prevent conceptual pitfalls and to further the progress of the field in international... [ view full abstract ]

In recent years, researchers in the global leadership domain are trying to understand the nature of the evolution of the field in order to prevent conceptual pitfalls and to further the progress of the field in international management (e.g., Bird and Mendenhall, 2015; Mendenhall et al., 2012). Mendenhall et al. (2016) called attention to both cultural intelligence and transformational leadership as commonly employed theoretical lenses to explain the relationship between global mindset and/or global leadership competencies. Boundary spanning capability in global team members has been found to be one of the emergent themes in the global leadership domain (Zander et al., 2012). Commenting on developments in the field to date, Maznevski et al. (2013) argued that research on global leadership has focused significantly on individual competencies, with perhaps insufficient attention being paid to delimiting the field itself. They also pointed out the growing disconnect between global leaders and researchers with respect to a shared understanding of the field. Osland et al. (2012) have similarly noted the prominence of content-oriented research in this space, and cautioned against the dearth of diverse theories and methodologies in studies focusing on leadership in the global context.

Although a study conducted by Mendenhall et al. (2016) focused on the recent trends in global leadership domain using academic journal articles, scholarly book chapters, and dissertations published between years 2010 and 2014, a more detailed approach is vital to the progress of this nascent field. Hence, the current study provides a more comprehensive assessment of the trends in the literature through bibliometric and text mining analyses. The key themes are generated using the title, keywords and abstract of journal articles in Nvivo pro 11 software.

Research methodology - Data collection and classification

The literature for the analysis were gathered using Scopus since it has the world’s largest abstract and citation database of peer reviewed literature (scientific journals, books, and conference proceedings). Keywords such as “global leader”, “global leadership”, “expatriate manager”, “international manager”, “global manager” and “expatriate supervisor” were used to retrieve the literature. In Scopus, singular form of words retrieves singular, plural, and possessive forms of most words. These keywords were carefully chosen based on the definition of global leadership by Mendenhall et al. (2012) and by tracing the evolution of global leadership as explicated by Bird and Mendenhall (2015). According to these studies, research on leadership in the global context is multifaceted and it comprises of contributions from research streams such as expatriation, intercultural communication, global management and comparative leadership.  

The keyword search using Scopus resulted in 24,439 articles, 6799 conference papers, 4163 book chapters and 3128 review paper. The next step involved screening only journal articles and review papers related to ‘business/management’, ‘psychology’ and ‘social science’ from the literature. This process resulted in 9738 business/management articles, 7670 social science articles and 837 psychology articles. To preserve the quality of the study, the articles were then retrieved from journals with a distinct focus on the study of management and organizational behavior in international contexts listed by Bird and Mendenhall (2015). Subsequently through content analysis, the articles were further shortlisted to mainly focus on leadership in the global context. The content analysis procedure involved further verification by the three-member co-author team to select articles that matched the focus of the study. When the content was not sufficient to reach a decision, the co-authors then referred the whole manuscript to sort articles. This process resulted in the final list of 330 articles that were considered relevant for the analyses. It is important to note here that both manual and computer aided methods (through Scopus) were used to sort the papers to ensure the process is reliable and valid. Information concerning articles such as title, abstract, keywords, authors, publication year, country of first author, and journal or source title were exported to an Excel sheet for the bibliometric data analyses.

We used the Nvivo pro 11 software to identify key themes or patterns in the literature (using abstract, title and keywords combined). Many researchers have used Nvivo software package in qualitative data analyses (e.g., Collings et al., 2008). In the current study we first explored the literature using queries. More specifically, we used word frequency query to identify recurring themes and concepts in the literature. Second, we used text search query to code most frequently used themes and concepts creating thematic nodes accordingly. It is important to note here that the thematic nodes were manually cross-checked to remove any duplicate coding and to confirm their accuracy. Finally, we used matrix coding query to help us cross-tabulate the thematic coding against time (in years).

Findings

Although we saw an increase in the number of articles published between year 1996-2001, there was a dip in the number of articles published between the years 2002-2006, 2006-2009, and 2009-2012. The years 2009, 2012, 2013, 2014 and 2016 showed considerable increase in the number of publications. Papers published between years 1998 and 2003 had higher number of citations when compared to papers published between the years 2003 and 2016. USA followed by Australia and UK were the top providers of articles in the field. It is very clear that USA dominates the field with more number of first author publications. In the expatriate domain, USA was the top most contributor and emerging Asian economies like People’s Republic of China and Taiwan were ranked 3^rd and 6^th highest contributor (Dabic et al., 2013). However, in the current study People’s Republic of China and Taiwan were not among the top contributors and this shows that the research in the leadership in global context is mainly governed by the USA standpoint.

Advances in Global Leadership (21.8 percent) is the primary outlet that published most of the papers followed by International Journal of Human Resource Management (15.5 percent), Journal of World Business (11.2 percent), Human Resource Management (6.7 percent), Organizational Dynamics (4.8 percent), Journal of International Business Studies (3.6 percent), and International Journal of Intercultural Relations (3.3 percent). Except for Organizational Dynamics, majority of these journals belong to international management research stream. This shows that researchers are publishing more in international business and human resource management journals. Majority number of articles were based on social capital theory followed by experiential learning theory and cultural theory. The most popular type of leader/leadership studied in the literature were transformational leadership followed by charismatic leadership and cross-cultural leadership. The key patterns found in the literature were- competency, training, global mindset and cultural intelligence, leadership in teams, and women leadership.

Implications/ Originality/value

The current research study provides opportunities for scholars to broaden this nascent field of study and fill in the research gaps. This would allow for new opportunities to aid further empirical and theoretical research and help organizations design and develop IHRM programs and policies focusing on leaders in global roles.

References

Bird, A. & Mendenhall, M. E. (2015) 'From cross-cultural management to global leadership: Evolution and adaptation', Journal of World Business, 51(1), pp. 115-126

Collings, D. G., Morley, M. J. & Gunnigle, P. (2008) 'Composing the top management team in the international subsidiary: Qualitative evidence on international staffing in U.S. MNCs in the Republic of Ireland', Journal of World Business, 43, pp. 197-212.

Dabic, M., Gonzalez-Loureiro, M. & Harvey, M. (2013) 'Evolving research on expatriates: what is ‘known’ after four decades (1970–2012)', The International Journal of Human Resource Management, 26(3), pp. 1-22.

Maznevski, M. L., & DiStefano, J. J. (2000) 'Global leaders are team players: Developing global leaders through membership on global teams', Human Resource Management, 39(02-Mar), pp. 195-208.

Mendenhall, M. E., Li, M. & Osland, J. S. (2016) 'Five years of global leadership research, 2010-2014: Patterns, themes, and future directions', Advances in Global Leadership, 9, pp. 401-426.

Mendenhall, M. E., Reiche, B. S., Bird, A. & Osland, J. S. (2012) 'Defining the global in global leadership', Journal of World Business, 47, pp. 493-503.

Osland, J. S., Bird, A. & Oddou, G. (2012) 'The context of expert global leadership', Advances in Global Leadership, 7, pp. 107-124.

Zander, L., Mockaitis, A. I. & Butler, C. L. (2012) 'Leading global teams', Journal of World Business, 47, pp. 592-603.