A science mapping-based review of digital leadership: Evolution and future research directions

Digital leadership has emerged as a critical determinant of organizational success in an era characterized by rapid technological advancement, yet the field suffers from significant theoretical fragmentation and lacks a systematic integration of its evolving knowledge base, presenting substantial challenges for both practitioners and scholars seeking to advance theoretical understanding. This study aims to provide a more comprehensive perspective on the evolution and future research directions of digital leadership. A science mapping-based review is conducted to systematically examine and visualize 960 rigorously selected papers from the Web of Science (WOS), with no time constraints, covering all relevant publications from 1991 to 2024. The methods employed include regional co-occurrence, document co-citation, keywords clustering, and keywords burst to uncover the underlying structure and development of the field. The findings of this study reveal the development of foundational research in digital leadership, demonstrating the integration of methodologies and theories from other disciplines. Furthermore, the study identifies three research trends: green sustainable development, human-centered leadership and cross-cultural leadership. The contribution of this study is the construction of a knowledge map of digital leadership, providing a comprehensive understanding of digital leadership. To further illustrate the application of this map, the construction industry is used as a case study.