The Evolution of Leadership Research in Higher Education for Two Decades (1995-2014): A Bibliometric and Content Analysis

Abstract

The present study aims to examine the leadership research in higher education in order to shed light on its development during the last two decades by revealing the evolving trends in research on leadership in higher education, the most prominent scholars working on related research, the most popular topics in related research, and the countries in which the related studies are based. Bibliometric method was employed in the analysis of the original research and review papers published in five prominent higher education journals between 1995 and 2014: Higher Education, Research in Higher Education, Studies in Higher Education, The Journal of Higher Education and The Review of Higher Education. The results of this bibliometric analysis show that the majority of the related articles come from three countries: the U.S.A., the UK and Australia. It is also found that the leadership research in higher education is still very scarce and has not shown any meaningful increase during the last two decades. In addition, content analysis is used to provide more in-depth information about the topical focus, purpose and methodology of the selected articles. The results of content analyses are discussed in detail, and suggestions for the future research are provided.