Revista de Ciencias Sociales (RCS)
Vol. XXX, No. 2, Abril - Junio
2024. pp. 45-64
FCES - LUZ ●
ISSN: 1315-9518 ● ISSN-E: 2477-9431
Como citar: Suárez-Amaya, W., Ganga-Contreras, F., Alarcón-Henríquez,
N., y Abello-Romero, J. (2024). Leadership trends in institutions of Higher Education: A bibliometric
review. Revista De Ciencias Sociales, XXX(2), 45-64.
Leadership trends in institutions of Higher Education: A bibliometric
review
Suárez-Amaya,
Wendolin*
Ganga-Contreras, Francisco**
Alarcón-Henríquez,
Nancy ***
Abello-Romero, Juan ****
Abstract
This Investigation aims to analyze scientific
production and thematic trends in the field of leadership in institutions of
higher education. This is a documentary type review which seeks to shows how a
bibliometric analysis of the Web of Science database is conducted. Information
processing was carried out using the Biblioshiny and VOSviewer tools. The
criterias for the searches and analysis were: The evolution in publications by
areas of knowledge, countries, affiliations, authors and their collaborations,
relevant journals and articles, as well as topics, with emphasis on the areas
of education and management. The results suggest a considerable increase, 120%
between 2017 and 2018, with an impact on related areas such as psychology and
sustainability. Production is concentrated in the United States and England,
however, when it comes to authors, attention needs to be paid to groups from
the United Kingdom, China and Norway. In terms of themes, competencies, soft
skills and well-being stand out. It is concluded that scientific production on
leadership in higher education is expanding, which represents a research niche
with development possibilities, whose interests in recent times have leaned towards
practices necessary to guarantee success when exercising leadership.
Keywords: University governance; higher
education institutions; scientific production; educational management;
educational research.
Tendencias del liderazgo en
instituciones de educación superior. Una revisión bibliométrica
Resumen
Esta
investigación tiene como objetivo analizar la producción científica y
tendencias temáticas en el ámbito del liderazgo en instituciones de educación superior. La revisión es de tipo
documental, y realiza un análisis bibliométrico de la base de datos Web of
Science. El procesamiento de la información se realizó utilizando las
herramientas Biblioshiny y VOSviewer. Los criterios para la búsqueda y análisis
son: Evolución en publicaciones por áreas de conocimiento, países,
afiliaciones, autores y sus colaboraciones, revistas y artículos relevantes,
así como también, las temáticas, con énfasis en las áreas de educación y
gerencia. Los resultados sugieren un incremento considerable, 120% entre 2017 y
2018, con impacto en áreas relacionadas como psicología y sostenibilidad. La
producción se concentra en Estados Unidos e Inglaterra, sin embargo, en lo que
respecta a autores, se requiere poner atención a los grupos de Reino Unido,
China y Noruega. En cuanto a temáticas destacan las competencias, habilidades
blandas y el bienestar. Se concluye que la producción científica en liderazgo
en educación superior se encuentra en expansión, lo cual representa un nicho de
investigación con posibilidades de desarrollo, cuyos intereses en los últimos
tiempos, se inclinan hacia prácticas necesarias para garantizar el éxito al
ejercer el liderazgo.
Palabras
clave:
Gobernanza universitaria; instituciones de educación superior; producción
científica; gerencia educativa; investigación en educación.
Introduction
The study of leadership in
different organizations will always be relevant, given that since human beings
made the decision to advance in groups, there have always been those who take
on the challenge of leading them along a certain path and taking them in a
specific direction. Higher education institutions do not escape this reality,
generating a diversity of research, both theoretical and empirical. The above
brings with it the need to properly distribute resources, which has driven the
evaluation of scientific activity and its impact on society (Suárez &
Pérez-Anaya, 2018).
A set of tools has been
created for theoretical work, where the use of bibliometrics is a trend that is
used in all departments. Bibliometrics is based on the search for statistically
regular behavior over time in various elements related to the production and
consumption of scientific information (Ardanuy, 2012; Matos, Contreras & Olaya,
2023).
These are contributions
originating from the documentation sciences that have been applied to various
areas of knowledge, with emphasis on generally accepted refined indicators such
as: the rate of growth of scientific information or its obsolescence (Price's
Law), the dispersion o concentration of works in certain scientific journals
(Bradford's Law); and the concentration or dispersion of the productivity of
the authors dedicated to developing knowledge in the subject (Lotka's Law). These
studies, in the words of Machado et al. (2016), show communication frequencies
and identify behavioral models that are established in data analysis patterns.
As a result of the above,
doing bibliometric research in any field makes sense, because it becomes a tool
to assess the influence of a certain research topic in the scientific
community, measured by citations and related to a specific publication to the
advancement of knowledge, i.e. allows to identify thematic trends and their
development, to identify emerging topics, who are and where are the research
groups dedicated to collecting information on the topic of interest.
The current study is part of
this field of work, which aims to analyze various trends in the field of higher
education management to contribute to the creation of excellence in knowledge
produced in this strategic field. educational organizations. The information
search focused on the Web of Science (WOS) database for the fields of education
and management.
1.
Theoretical foundation
1.1. Lidearship in Universities
Leadership is one of the
variables that university senior management needs to exercise to achieve better
results in organizations. In terms of leadership with a focus on higher
education, there is a history of review work applied to various topics and
contexts, such as the e-Leadership or digital leadership and its influence on
both the administrative process and learning (Arnold & Sangrá, 2018;
Jameson et al., 2022); and, sustainable leadership (Sánchez-Carrillo et al.,
2022; Aung & Hallinger, 2023).
Additionally, there are
studies that focus on the way in which women exercise leadership, as well as
their barriers or facilitators (Pando et al., 2022; Meza-Mejía,
Villareal-García & Ortega-Barba, 2023), which stand out in the Vietnamese
context, Maheshwari (2021); Maheshwari, Nayak & Ngyyen (2021); and, in the
Indies, Banker (2023); Also different investigations regarding the dominant
concepts and discourses such as power practices are also evident (Allan, Gordon
& Iverson, 2006); toxic leadership (Smith & Fredricks-Lowman, 2020);
the required competencies (Salazar, Muñoz-Jara & Caviedes, 2023;
Virgili-Lillo, Cedeño & Escalona, 2023); middle leadership (Maddock,
2023); and leadership of the teaching-learning process (Kinnunen et al., 2024).
On the other hand, studies
such as Akanji et al. (2020); Pedraja-Rejas, Rodríguez-Ponce & Muñoz-Fritis
(2021); Grajfoner, Rojon & Eshraghian (2022); and Mahabubul (2022), are
dedicated to the study of the influence of organizational culture on leadership
style in universities. Similarly, efforts have been made to prove that
managerial honesty has a positive effect on moral performance at work (Erkutlu
& Chafra, 2020) and academic personal satisfaction (Kasalak et al., 2022).
This phenomenon has also been associated with variables such as organizational
change (Kemplin & Mechur, 2018), organizational commitment (Ndlovu et al.,
2018; Alamir et al., 2019; Almutairi, 2020).
In this order of ideas, the
research developed by Udin et al. (2019) managed to demonstrate that there is a
positive relationship between leadership styles, communication skills and
employee satisfaction. Likewise, the work of Bracho-Fuenmayor (2023) identifies
leadership skills, such as empathy and communication to navigate times of
change in academia. For their part, Al-Mansoori & Koc (2019) incorporated
systems driven by innovation and intrinsic motivation as an analysis variable,
as a complement to the Multifactor Leadership survey, which is the most used on
the subject. In a complementary way, the study developed by Van Hemmen et al. (2015)
identify that, among leadership styles, participative is the strongest
explanatory factor with respect to innovative entrepreneurship in universities,
in a sample of 43 countries.
It should be noted that the
style most worked on in the specialized literature is transformational
leadership, some of the variables involved being student performance in the
teaching-learning process (Balwant et al., 2019; Kucharska & Rebelo, 2022);
the organizational climate in change-oriented organizational citizenship
behavior (López-Domínguez et al., 2013).
A contextual factor that has
significantly influenced leadership studies in education is the Covid-19
pandemic, which has posed unprecedented challenges in the educational field,
even though experiences with virtual education were already being developed, a
good part of Institutions with a tradition of face-to-face education were not
prepared to assume the changes that were produced abruptly, which forced them
to define, in record time, new ways of working, the challenge of the
technological gap and inequalities in access to technology (Bebbington, 2021;
Watermeyer et al., 2021; Sedereviciute-Paciauskiene, Valantinaite &
Kliukas, 2021; Pekkolaa et al., 2021; Baumber et al., 2021; Chisholm-Burns,
Brandon & Spivey, 2021; Dumulescu & Mutiu, 2021; Aftab et al., 2022;
Muchabaiwa & Gondo, 2022; Yeboah, 2022; Mittal et al., 2022; Roy &
Brown, 2022; Chitpin & Karoui, 2022; Shoaib et al., 2022, Du Plessis et
al., 2022).
In summary, it is evident from
a theoretical point of view that leadership in educational organizations
requires being approached from a multifactorial perspective, highly permeated
by the situational, the contingent, which includes not only the influence of
leaders and their relationship with followers, but also, its deterministic
nature in quantitative factors such as performance, and qualitative factors
such as the organizational environment and well-being. In the case of the
academy, a double challenge appears: on the one hand, compliance with the
teaching-learning process, and on the other, the challenge of good management.
On both levels, leadership appears as a concurrent aspect.
2.
Methodology
To analyze
scientific production and thematic trends in the field of leadership in higher
education institutions, a documentary review was carried out; the Web of
Science database from Clarivate Analytics was used as a source of information;
For this purpose, a search strategy was established that included the terms
Leadership and Higher Education, the latter in quotes. The relationship between
both terms is given by the Boolean operator AND.
This is how
the strategy of Leadership and Managemenrt were applied (“Higher Education” OR
universit*). The results of this search were filtered by their access level, by
document type and by year, to include only open access articles published until
2023, obtaining a total of 2,886 results. Subsequently, a filter was applied by
research areas, to include only those that presented at least one document
relevant to the research, this by reading the title and abstract of the
articles. In total, 34 categories were included, representing 1,118 articles
(see Table 1).
Table 1
Search
strategy and inclusion and exclusion criteria
|
Finding
Wos Core and all of the editions. Search based on topic (KW, KWPlus, Title y Abstract) N= 2.886 |
||
|
Access |
Open Access |
1,247 |
|
Document Type |
Article |
1,166 |
|
Language |
English or Spanish |
1,118 |
Source: Own elaboration, 2024.
To carry out the bibliometric
analysis, the Biblioshiny tool was used, from the Bibliometrix package, which
operates through the R work environment, that is, it is a mathematical software
oriented to data processing, with a graphical work environment (Aria & Cuccurullo,
2017; Araya-Pizarro & Verelst, 2023). Using this tool, thematic maps were
constructed based on the algorithm of Callon, Courtial & Laville (1991),
which grouped the subthemes present in the literature according to their level
of relevance and development.
The algorithm keywords were
grouped into semantic units that make up clusters based on their frequency.
Taxonomic mapping considers the use of two variables, one is centrality, that
is, the degree of interaction of the network with other networks; and the other
variable is density, which refers to the strength of the internal associations
of a group (Araya-Pizarro & Verelst, 2023). This is how the subtopics are
divided into 4 different quadrants (Ganga-Contreras et al., 2024), these are:
a. Motor themes: Central
cluster, objects of systematic attention with strong internal and external
connections.
b. Main themes: Central
cluster but low internal density. These are usually transfer points or growing
problems.
c. Niche topics: A core set of
strong internal links. Usually highly developed areas that gradually lost
interest.
d. Emerging themes: a remote
and underdeveloped cluster that through dynamic analysis shows development and
connection to other networks.
Similarly, Lotka's law was
used as a reference for analysis to check whether the majority of articles came
from a small group of authors (Ubizagástegui, 1999). Using the software
VOSviewer v1.6.19, it was possible to plot networks of contributors to the
entire set of analyzed documents (Van Eck & Waltman, 2018), without a
normalization method and based on the general strength of the nodal
distribution bond attribute (total bond strength). Also, with his help, we were
able to create a diagram of keyword networks in documents. To this end, a
normalization method was applied based on linking and partitioning nodes based
on a general link strength attribute, as for the cofactor.
3. Resuts and discussion
3.1. Number of publications per year and by areas
of knowledge
The 1,118 articles recovered
were published in a period of 34 years, specifically between 1990 and 2023,
where the largest number of works is concentrated in the last decade. Since
2005, annual production begins to experience sustained growth, which is
interrupted in 2010, when the number of articles published drops from 19 to 7,
and then rebounds to 14 in 2011. The annual rate of Growth remains similar
until 2018, when an increase of 120.4% is observed, going from 44 articles in
2017 to 97 in 2018. In the time series presented, it reaches its maximum point
in 2022 with a total of 178 publications (see Graph I).
Source: Own elaboration,
2024.
Graph I:
Publications by year in leadership and higher education recorded in the Web of
Science database. Period 1990-2020
The analysis of the results
obtained on the Web of Science platform shows that scientific publications on
leadership in the field of higher education constitute a wealth of knowledge
that has experienced a notable increase. Phenomenon that has been previously
identified in the works of Najam & Mustamil (2020); Ashiq et al. (2023);
Jiang et al. (2024).
When making a distribution by
area of knowledge, it was found that all the articles were published in 83
research areas, of these, 10 qualify as the most productive. Of this
classification, 2 stand out with the greatest number of articles, these are:
Educational Research, and Business Economics; Thirdly, there are the articles
that are present in two categories, such as: Science & Technology - Other
Topics and Environmental Sciences & Ecology (see Table 2).
Table 2
Top 10 of the
most productive research areas in leadership and education in the Web of
Sciences database. Period 1990-2023
|
Areas of Investigation |
Total Publishings |
Percentage
Total |
|
Education
& Educational Research |
244 |
21.82% |
|
Business
& Economics |
158 |
14.13% |
|
Science
& Technology - Other Topics; Environmental Sciences & Ecology |
55 |
4.92% |
|
Health Care
Sciences & Services |
54 |
4.83% |
|
Psychology |
39 |
3.49% |
|
Public,
Environmental & Occupational Health |
39 |
3.49% |
|
Education
& Educational Research; Health Care Sciences & Services |
37 |
3.31% |
|
General
& Internal Medicine |
36 |
3.22% |
|
Social
Sciences - Other Topics |
36 |
3.22% |
|
Science
& Technology - Other Topics |
27 |
2.42% |
Source: Own elaboration, 2024.
When analyzing the information
grouped by area of knowledge, a significant percentage of participation in
the areas of business and research in education can be noted, which together
represent close to half of scientific production. Now, the coverage presented
by the health area in its various manifestations is notable, such as service
and care, which together represents close to 25% of the total. These results
offer emerging trends in educational management, while the institution studies
itself. Examples of these are the works of Hickson et al. (2007); Wu, Chen
& Li (2008); Ntim, Sooberoyen & Broad (2017); and, that of Klofsten et
al. (2019).
In Table 3, it can be noted in
more detail, using 2018 and 2022 as base years, the increase in scientific
production in the areas of business and education. In 2017, both areas:
Business with 14 articles in WOS and education with 36, cover 54% of scientific
production. By 2022, they cover 49% of the total, with 36 and 52 articles
respectively
Table 3
Number of
articles on leadership and education published in Web of Science by selected
research area. Base in the years 2018 and
2022
|
Areas of Investigation |
2018 |
2022 |
|
Business Economics |
20 |
36 |
|
Education Educational Research |
32 |
52 |
|
Enviromental |
7 |
23 |
|
Social sciences |
6 |
8 |
Source: Own elaboration, 2024.
The above demonstrates that
leadership in education from the perspective of management and education is in
full development, and therefore, represents an opportunity to continue
exploring as a line of research.
3.2. Countries
When reviewing the total
scientific production generated by countries in the field of leadership and
higher education, it is evident that the largest number of publications are
from the United States and England, with 247 and 168 articles respectively (see
Table 4). Although the difference between the number of publications between
one country and another is considerable, during the last 10 years, the annual
production of England surpassed that of the United States on up to 3 occasions.
However, the most important difference is in the North American country, which
in 2021 published 41 articles, compared to 19 in the European country (see Graph
II).
Table 4
Countries
with the highest number of publications on leadership and education in the Web
of Sciences database. Period between 1990 and
2023
|
País |
Cantidad |
|
USA |
247 |
|
ENGLAND |
168 |
|
AUSTRALIA |
79 |
|
PEOPLES R
CHINA |
70 |
|
SPAIN |
61 |
|
CANADA |
44 |
|
SOUTH AFRICA |
44 |
|
FINLAND |
37 |
|
MALAYSIA |
35 |
|
TURKEY |
34 |
Nota: Showing 10 out of 108
entries.
Source: Own elaboration,
2024.
Source: Own
Elaboration, 2024.
Graph II: Evolution of the number of publications from
the United States and England for the period 2015-2023
3.3. Afiliations
There are a total of 1,780
Universities and research centers associated with the scientific production analyzed.
Of these, the University of California System is the one that accumulates the
largest number of works, with 24. This is followed by the University of London
with 17 and another 3 entities with 12 publications each (see Table 5). This
result is expected, given that the United States and England lead the way in
scientific production worldwide.
Table 5
Affiliations
with the most publications on leadership and higher education in Web of
Sciences. Period of 1990 - 2023
|
Affiliation |
Quantity |
|
UNIVERSITY
OF CALIFORNIA SYSTEM |
24 |
|
UNIVERSITY
OF LONDON |
17 |
|
HARVARD
UNIVERSITY |
12 |
|
TAMPERE
UNIVERSITY |
12 |
|
UNIVERSITY
OF EASTERN FINLAND |
12 |
|
UNIVERSITY
OF TORONTO |
12 |
|
MINISTRY
OF EDUCATION SCIENCE OF UKRAINE |
11 |
|
PENNSYLVANIA
COMMONWEALTH SYSTEM OF HIGHER EDUCATION PCSHE |
11 |
|
UNIVERSITY
OF GRANADA |
11 |
|
KING
ABDULAZIZ UNIVERSITY |
10 |
Note: Showing 10
out of 1.780 entries.
Source: Own elaboration,
2024.
These results influence the
growing participation by area of knowledge, proof of this is that, when
reviewing the production of the University of California System, the trend
leans towards Education Educational Research and Health Care Sciences Services (see
Table 6).
Table 6
University of
California System publications in leadership and higher education by research
area in Web of Sciences. Period of 1990 - 2023
|
Areas of Investigation |
Quantity |
|
Education Educational Research |
8 |
|
Health Care Sciences Services |
8 |
|
General Internal Medicine |
3 |
|
Public Environmental Occupational Health |
3 |
|
Business Economics |
2 |
|
Social Sciences Other Topics |
2 |
|
Agriculture |
1 |
|
History Philosophy Of Science |
1 |
|
Meteorology Atmospheric Sciences |
1 |
|
Neurosciences Neurology |
1 |
Note: Showing 10
out of 14 entries.
Source: Own elaboration,
2024.
3.4. Authors and Contributions
When analyzing the authors on
the subject in the areas of education and business, a total of 4,181 authors
are identified, of which there are 3 with the highest number of publications
among the first 10; they are Mousa M, Shafait Z and Stensaker B, with 4
publications each (see Table 7). It should be noted that Mousa M's work focuses
on the areas of Business Economics and Public Administration and his main
affiliation is Cardiff Metropolitan University, United Kingdom. While Shafait
Z, has focused his research interests in the areas of Environmental Sciences
Ecology and Psychology; its main collaborating entities being Northwestern
Polytechnical University and Zhejiang Normal University, both Chinese
institutions. On the other hand, Stensaker B's studies are entirely in the area
of Education Educational Research, and his main affiliation is the University
of Oslo, Norway.
Table 7
Top 10 most
productive authors on the subject of leadership and higher education in the Web
of Sciences database. Period of 1990 - 2023
|
Authors |
Quantity |
|
Mousa M |
4 |
|
Shafait Z |
4 |
|
Stensaker B |
4 |
|
Atan T |
3 |
|
Ayoubi RM |
3 |
|
Bolden R |
3 |
|
Egbrink MGAO |
3 |
|
Floyd A |
3 |
|
Gosling J |
3 |
|
Harvey G |
3 |
Source: Own elaboration, 2024.
In terms of collaborations,
Mousa M has mainly worked in collaboration with Ayoubi RM and Massoud HK,
confirming a cluster of institutions in the UK; while, the main co-author of
Shafait Z is Huang JY who generates joint publication from China; and that of
Stensaker B, and Maassen P who represent the third pole of development from
Oslo (see Table 8).
Table 8
Top
collaborations by authors in leadership and education publications registered
in the Web of Sciences database. Period of
1990 - 2023
|
Collaborations separated
by Authors |
|||||
|
Mousa M |
Shafait Z |
Stensaker B |
|||
|
Authors |
Quantity
of Articles |
Authors |
Quantity
of Articles |
Authors |
Quantity
of Articles |
|
Ayoubi RM |
3 |
Huang JY |
2 |
Maassen P |
2 |
|
Massoud HK |
3 |
Cai BB |
1 |
Aamodt PO |
1 |
|
Abdelgaffar
HA |
1 |
Chen LF |
1 |
Cai YZ |
1 |
|
Murtaza G |
1 |
Meyer N |
1 |
Frolich N |
1 |
|
Puhakka V |
1 |
Sroka W |
1 |
Hovdhaugen E |
1 |
|
|
|
Zhu YM |
1 |
Rosso A |
1 |
|
|
|
|
|
Ruan JY |
1 |
Source: Own elaboration,
2024.
These results reveal, first of
all, that leadership in higher education does not show a concentration of
authors, that is, we cannot speak of consolidated theoretical-empirical
references on the subject. Secondly, the authors are located in dissimilar and
geographically dispersed development poles. It is striking that the most
productive authors do not belong to the institutions identified as most
productive. The above is because these productive institutions, although they
contribute to a greater extent with scientific production related to higher
education, they emphasize the area of health and care, and not from the
perspective of educational management. as is the case of the aforementioned
authors.
3.5. Journals and relevant Articles
The 1,118 articles have been
published in a total of 587 specialized journals, of which Sustainability is
the one with the largest number, 51 in total (see Table 9). This is followed by
Academic Medicine and Frontiers in Psychology. 100% of the articles published
by Sustainability belong to the areas Environmental Sciences Ecology and
Science Technology Other Topics; while the 32 Academic Medicine publications
belong to Education Educational Research and Health Care Sciences Services. The
fifth journal with the most publications is Education Sciences with 18
publications, in which England is the country with the greatest presence.
Table 9
Journals
registered in Web of Sciences with the largest number of publications in
leadership and higher education. Period of
1990 - 2023
|
Journals |
Quantity |
|
SUSTAINABILITY |
51 |
|
ACADEMIC
MEDICINE |
32 |
|
FRONTIERS IN
PSYCHOLOGY |
25 |
|
JOURNAL OF
NURSING MANAGEMENT |
21 |
|
EDUCATION
SCIENCES |
18 |
|
INTERNATIONAL
JOURNAL OF ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH AND PUBLIC HEALTH |
18 |
|
ASIA PACIFIC
MANAGEMENT REVIEW |
17 |
|
BMC HEALTH
SERVICES RESEARCH |
16 |
|
STUDIES IN
HIGHER EDUCATION |
16 |
|
PLOS ONE |
13 |
Note: Showing 10 out of 587 entries
Source: Own Elaboration, 2024.
It is also worth highlighting
the multidisciplinary nature of the knowledge generated, as is the case of
Sustainability and Frontiers in Psychology, this is perceived as an opportunity
to expand the field of knowledge, as it contributes to the integration of
different perspectives, methods and approaches in a way collaborative that
allows us to offer innovative, holistic solutions.
Regarding the articles that
are relevant to the database, Table 10 shows a top 10 articles. This selection
is obtained from a choice made by Web of Sciences based on the coincidences
between the terms. key search strategy and job titles, abstract and keywords;
in this way it sorts the list of jobs in descending order.
Table 10
Articles of
greatest relevance in the research areas of management and education &
educational research according to the Web of Sciences database
|
Author |
Títle |
Year |
Journal |
Quotes |
|
Waring, M. |
Management and leadership in UK
universities: exploring the possibilities of change |
2017 |
JOURNAL OF HIGHER EDUCATION POLICY
AND MANAGEMENT |
7 |
|
Vuori, J. |
Distributed leadership in the
construction of a new higher education campus and community |
2019 |
EDUCATIONAL MANAGEMENT ADMINISTRATION &
LEADERSHIP |
11 |
|
Wan, CD; Sirat, M; Razak, DA |
Academic governance and leadership
in Malaysia: Examining the national higher education strategic initiatives |
2020 |
JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL AND
COMPARATIVE EDUCATION |
6 |
|
Cornelius-Bell, A; Bell, PA |
Partnership as Student Power:
Democracy and Governance in a Neoliberal University |
2020 |
RADICAL TEACHER |
4 |
|
Al-Husseini, S; El Beltagi, I; Moizer, J |
Transformational leadership and
innovation: the mediating role of knowledge sharing amongst higher education
faculty |
2021 |
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF LEADERSHIP
IN EDUCATION |
47 |
|
Vlachopoulos, D |
Organizational Change Management in
Higher Education through the Lens of Executive Coaches |
2021 |
EDUCATION SCIENCES |
6 |
|
McNamara, A |
Crisis Management in Higher
Education in the Time of Covid-19: The Case of Actor Training |
2021 |
EDUCATION SCIENCES |
4 |
|
Lamm, KW; Sapp, LR; Randall, NL; Lamm, AJ. |
Leadership development programming
in higher education: an exploration of perceptions of transformational
leadership across gender and role types |
2021 |
TERTIARY EDUCATION AND MANAGEMENT |
2 |
|
Popkova, EG; Sergi, BS |
Strategic academic leadership and
high-tech economic growth |
2023 |
FRONTIERS IN EDUCATION |
4 |
|
Crawford, M. |
Being a Head of Department in an
English University |
2023 |
EDUCATIONAL REVIEW |
3 |
Source: Own elaboration, 2024.
The area of interest that
appears in all the results is Education & Educational Research, where the
most relevant article corresponds to the authorship of Waring (2017) the
article is titled: Management and leadership in UK universities: exploring the
possibilities of change. It should be noted that 4 of these 10 works were
published in 2021, coinciding with the period with the highest number of
publications in general. There are no important trends regarding authors,
institutions or serial publications that can be highlighted.
3.6. Themes
The themes are identified from
the thematic coincidences identified in the keywords contained in the works.
Thus, it is possible to visualize in Figure I the co-occurrence of keywords,
the temporal evolution and the clusters formed by them, which in this case
there are 17.
Source: Own
elaboration, 2024 through Vos Viewer Software.
Figure I: Co-occurrence of keywords in leadership
and higher education articles in the Web of Science database. Period of
2007-2023
The clusters range from 27 items to
2. The key terms Leadership (n= 154), Higher Education (n= 127) and Management
(n= 49), were the 3 most frequent keywords in the total of articles studied.
Leadership forms a cluster of 17 items with other terms such as knowledge
management, knowledge sharing and universities. Higher Education, on the other
hand, forms a cluster of 19 items, with words such as employability, soft
skills or competences. Thirdly, Management forms a cluster of 6 items with
change or sustainability. Other high frequency keywords were Covid-19 (n= 35),
education (n= 29) or transformational leadership (n= 25).
Specifically, the key term Covid-19
forms a cluster mainly with the words burnout, competence, crisis management,
soft skills and stress. In the same way, Covid-19 has its highest frequency in
the year 2022, thus being the key term whose maximum frequency is observed most
recently.
Additionally, the application of the
algorithm of Callon et al. (1991), allows the construction of a thematic map
that groups the main key terms into thematic areas according to four quadrants,
depending on their frequency and the strength of their links among themselves
(250 words, min cluster 5, clustering algorithm infomap) (see Figure II). As
driving themes, that is, they represent the main research problems, there are
the predominant terms such as leadership, higher education and management,
represented in cluster 1.
Source: Own
elaboration, 2024 through Biblioshiny software.
Figure II:
Taxonomic map based on Callon's algorithm of articles related to leadership and
higher education in the web of sciences database. Period of 1990 - 2023
On the other hand, in the
quadrant of basic topics (topics of high relevance, but under development), are
the terms emotional intelligence, evaluation or human resource management. For
their part, topics such as competencies and quality are topics that are
emerging, and with regard to niche topics, there are ethical leadership and
public health in the Latin American context.
In general terms, it can be
said that the thematic trends around leadership in higher education show
correspondence relationships with various variables that demonstrate the
concerns or research problems on which experts in the field are focusing.
Themes such as knowledge management, sustainability, employability, soft skills
and competencies appear as the most frequent. The presence of an emerging
issue, Covid-19, is notable, particularly in topics such as bornout, skills,
management crisis, soft skills and stress. That is, there is a notable interest
in the topics of well-being, self-care and adaptation to unexpected situations,
and how this affects the organizational climate and performance.
Conclusion
By developing this
bibliometric analysis, the importance of carrying out this type of work is
evident, especially for those who are starting a line of research or need to
update the existing one. The findings have allowed us to have a panoramic and
updated vision of the behavioral patterns of the research that has been
developed around the topic of leadership and higher education.
The first approach to the
research background allowed us to corroborate the multifactorial nature of
leadership in various processes related to success in educational
organizations, and even though scientific production on these topics has been
developed, it continues to expand.
Regarding institutions and
authors, it is evident that it cannot be considered a topic with consolidated
theoretical-empirical references; Furthermore, the authors are located in
dissimilar and geographically dispersed development poles. These results invite
us to continue exploring the topic, in order to expand or refine the searches,
depending on the relevance given to the results.
Another element to highlight
is the multidisciplinary nature of the phenomenon. Of particular interest is
the growing amount of scientific production that is being generated from
related disciplines such as medical sciences and psychology, for example, to
address issues associated with health, well-being and the development of life
skills. These variables have been highlighted by the pandemic and its possible
effects on people.
Finally, it can be said that
the findings not developed in this work open possibilities for the future. It
is considered necessary to expand the analysis around comparisons with other
databases such as Scopus, as well as apply literature reviews on the
information identified as relevant to contrast theoretical and methodological
approaches.
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