Exploring Inclusive Leadership Research from a Bibliometric Perspective

Abstract

This study reviews inclusive leadership research using bibliometric analysis. Its aim is to show the main trends, related concepts, and possible gaps in the field. The analysis was carried out with Biblioshiny, the web-based interface of the Bibliometrix R package. The dataset included 456 articles from the Web of Science (WoS) database. The study examined yearly publication trends, keyword co-occurrence networks, thematic maps and thematic evolution, the most cited publications, leading sources, reference co-citation relationships, productive authors, country-level publication output, and international research collaboration. The results show that inclusive leadership is still a relatively new research area which has grown quickly in recent years. It is often studied together with psychological safety, diversity, inclusion, work engagement, psychological empowerment, innovative work behavior, knowledge sharing, and inclusive climate. The thematic map shows that inclusive leadership, psychological safety, and work engagement are among the main themes in the field. The thematic evolution analysis also shows that psychological safety, green inclusive leadership, gender, and gender equality became more visible in recent periods. Green creativity, power, and leadership development were less central in the author keyword co-occurrence network but may offer useful directions for future research. China and the United States make the largest contributions to the literature, while research from some parts of Africa, Middle East, and South America is still limited.