Inclusive Leadership: A Scientometric Assessment of an Emerging Field

Inclusive leadership is exhibiting signs of an emerging field of theory and practice. The purpose of this research is to systematically map this emergence and its various facets.

Citation information from 91 records on inclusive leadership were extracted from Scopus and analyzed using a series of citation and co-word techniques.

We identified six clusters of keywords that underpin the current state of research on inclusive leadership. We also unraveled a trend that suggests research on inclusive leadership is moving from a simple approach to leadership on healthcare and education to become a universally desirable style of leadership in parallel with the global increase in the importance of diversity and inclusion.

This study is the first attempt to develop a complete map of the domain of inclusive leadership. It also provides management researchers and practitioners with a tool for evaluating inclusive leadership publications and provides a systematic and objective means of determining the relative importance of the field in the development of the inclusive leadership research.

Bibliometric literature review (Meta analytic review)