Mapping educational leadership, administration and management research 2007–2016. Thematic strands and the changing landscape
| Pages | 129-150 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/JEA-12-2018-0234 |
| Date | 19 November 2019 |
| Published date | 19 November 2019 |
| Author | Meng Tian,Stephan Gerhard Huber |
| Subject Matter | Education,Administration & policy in education,School administration/policy,Educational administration,Leadership in education |
Mapping educational leadership,
administration and management
research 2007–2016
Thematic strands and the changing landscape
Meng Tian
Department of Education, University of Bath, Bath, UK, and
Stephan Gerhard Huber
Institute for the Management and Economics of Education,
Padagogische Hochschule Zug, Zug, Switzerland
Abstract
Purpose –The purpose of this paper is to examine the development of educational leadership,
administration and management (EdLAM) research by identifying thematic strands that hallmark key
publications and synthesise major research findings and limitations.
Design/methodology/approach –This study combines bibliometric and content analysis methods to
review 2,347 publications from 15 core EdLAM journals published from 2007 to 2016.
Findings –The bibliometric ana lysis identified five E dLAM thematic strand s: school leadership fo r
enhancing students’academic achievement and teachers’effectiveness; leadership for educational
change, accountabil ity and promoting demo cratic values; leade rship for social just ice, equal education
and narrowing achieve ment gaps; principa l’s instructional lea dership for school i mprovement; and
distributed leaders hip and its impact on org anisational climat e and teachers’attitud es and stress.
The content analysis revealed that the EdLAM research from 2007 to 2016 further developed the
following research a reas: the dynamics be tween leaders and teac hers in leadership wo rk, the potential
risks of distributed l eadership and the EdLAM challenges brought by the New Public Manageme nt
and neoliberalism.
Originality/value –This study depicts state-of-the-art EdLAM research. It confirms the combination of
bibliometric and content analyses as a useful approach for large-scale review studies. Finally, this review
suggests future research directions.
Keywords Content analysis, Management, Administration, Bibliometric analysis, Science mapping,
Educational leadership, Mapping review
Paper type Literature review
Introduction
Prior to the 1990s, educational leadership, management and administration (EdLAM)
research has been mostly conducted by Anglo-Saxon scholars within Anglo-Saxon contexts
(Hallinger, 2019). Since the early 2000s, an international EdLAM knowledge base has been
gradually formed thanks to an increasing number of studies from emerging regions, as
evidenced by a series of regional reviews covering, for example, Hong Kong 1995–2014
(Szeto et al., 2015), East Asia mid-1980s–2015 (Walker and Hallinger, 2015), Asia 1995–2012
(Hallinger and Chen, 2015), Africa up until 2016 (Hallinger, 2017), Arab societies 2000–2016
(Hallinger and Hammad, 2017) and Latin America 1991–2017 (Castillo and Hallinger, 2018).
The rapid development of EdLAM research calls for a systematic review covering both
theoretical and empirical studies in both Anglo-Saxon and emerging regions. However,
reviewing a large number of publications and making sense of their key findings raises a
methodological challenge (Diem and Wolter, 2013; Gumus et al., 2018; Zawacki-Richter and
Naidu, 2016). One solution is mixing bibliometric and content analysis methods. Two recent
EdLAM reviews have applied this novel bibliometric analysis approach and yielded
valuable findings (Table I).
Journal of Educational
Administration
Vol. 58 No. 2, 2020
pp. 129-150
© Emerald PublishingLimited
0957-8234
DOI 10.1108/JEA-12-2018-0234
Received 22 December 2018
Revised 29 March 2019
19 July 2019
29 September 2019
Accepted 3 October 2019
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/0957-8234.htm
129
Mapping
EdLAM
First, Gumus et al. (2018) reviewed 743 articles published from 1980 to 2014. They searched
for keywords (i.e. 14 leadership models) in 15 core journals indexed in the Web of Science
database. By counting the number of publications, they ranked the popularity of 14 models
as follows: distributed/collaborative, instructional, teacher, transformational, curriculum,
technology, transactional, ethical/moral, charismatic, administrative/managerial, strategic,
authentic, visionary and servant leadership. The bibliometric analysis identified the
most-published scholars (e.g. Hallinger, Leithwood, Devos, Spillane and Goldring) and
their research interests (i.e. distributed, instructional, teacher and transformational
leadership). Gumus et al. (2018) further conducted a content analysis of 183 papers
published in Educational Administration Quarterly (EAQ) and Educational Management,
Administration & Leadership (EMAL). They found that until 2010, most EdLAM studies
were qualitative. Driven by global accountability demands, more studies started to examine
the impact of leadership models on student achievement. School principals remained
the most popular research subject, while other mid-level and teacher leaders started to gain
more attention. Gumus et al.’s (2018) review has two limitations. The bibliometric analysis
excluded papers from the Journal of Educational Administration,International Journal
of Educational Management, School Leadership and Management and International Journal
of Leadership in Education. The content analysis only examined papers from two journals,
as described above.
Second, Hallinger (2019) reviewed 1,171 articles published between 1965 and 2018 in
nine SCOPUS-indexed journals. He conducted a bibliometric analysis including the
keywords co-occurrence, citation and co-citation analyses. Hallinger (2019) only reviewed
empirical studies from three emerging regions: Asia, Africa and Latin America. The
bibliometric analysis confirmed that principal’s leadership and shared leadership on student
achievement and curriculum reform were two key research themes. Other identified
themes included social justice, school improvement, teacher learning, accountability and
leadership development. The citation analysis identified the Top 20 most-published authors
(e.g. Hallinger,Walker, Oplatka, Cheng and Dimmock)and the Top 20 most-cited papers. The
co-citation analysis surfaced different schools of thought formed by EdLAM scholars.
The present study Gumus et al. (2018) Hallinger (2019)
Time frame 2007–2016 1980–2014 1965–2018
Sources (EdLAM
core journals)
15 15 9
Database ERIC Web of Science SCOPUS
Searching
keywords
Educational leadership,
educational management,
educational leadership,
K-12 education
Distributed/collaborative,
instructional, teacher,
transformational, curriculum,
technology, transactional,
ethical/moral, charismatic,
administrative/managerial,
strategic, authentic, visionary
or servant leadership
Latin American, African or
Asian countries, K–12,
higher education
Bibliometric
analysis
2,347 articles 743 articles 1,171 articles
Content analysis 75 most citied publications
in five themes
183 articles in EAQ and
EMAL
na
Review focus EdLAM research themes,
change of research interests,
most-cited publications and
key findings
EdLAM research on 14
leadership models and
most-published scholars
EdLAM research in Asia,
Africa and Latin America,
most-cited scholars,
publications and author
co-citation
Table I.
A comparison of three
EdLAM reviews
130
JEA
58,2
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