This paper aims to advance the understanding of collectivistic leadership research by identifying prominent terms and uncovering underlying topics within a comprehensive body of existing literature on the subject.
The authors analyzed 1,224 academic papers featuring keywords related to collective leadership approaches (e.g. collective leadership, shared leadership and distributed leadership) using two text-mining techniques: term frequency analysis and correlated topic modeling (CTM).
The term frequency analysis revealed that studies grouped under conventional collectivistic leadership labels share similar contextual themes. The CTM identified seven latent topics as the most distinctive themes in the existing literature: (1) conceptualization of collectivistic leadership, (2) distributed leadership in schools, (3) shared leadership in management, (4) collectivistic leadership in specific professions, (5) collectivistic leadership for advanced service, (6) innovation and complexity in projects and (7) organizational learning.
Organizations can enhance agility by adopting collectivistic leadership models that promote decentralized decision-making. Leaders can foster shared influence to drive innovation, while employees benefit from greater participation and engagement. Human resource professionals should design policies and development programs that reinforce collectivistic leadership competencies.
This study contributes to the collective leadership literature by identifying significant research trends and offering a data-driven understanding of how collectivistic leadership practices evolve across different contexts and disciplines.
