Organizational Leadership in Africa: A Structured Review and Suggestions for Future Research

Abstract

The field of organizational leadership has made significant progress in recent years, resulting in a substantial corpus of literature. Nevertheless, the African context continues to face challenges in the development of organizational leaders. This discrepancy underscores the necessity of additional research to investigate the leadership dynamics within the continent. This study seeks to address the knowledge gap on leadership's important role in solving Africa's organizational difficulties through a structured review process that ensures a reproducible and thorough synthesis of current literature. This article reviews 515 leadership studies conducted in Africa from 1960 to 2019. The purpose of this study was to broaden the understanding of leadership in the following ways: (i) Clarify the number and nature of organizational leadership studies in Africa vis-à-vis other leadership domains; (ii) Coding and categorize the theoretical and nomological network of organizational leadership articles in Africa; (iii) Provide a comprehensive analysis of the findings to comprehend the holistic research representation of organizational leadership in Africa; and (iv) Examine the instruments and methodologies employed in studies to assess organizational leadership on the continent. The outcomes have a dual purpose. Descriptive diachronic analysis allows scholars to explore an extensive collection of historical leadership literature. This article identifies four explanatory claims about African leadership research through a synchronic analysis. These are: (i) There is a notable scarcity of studies focusing on organizational leadership in Africa; (ii) Emic leadership scale development is a rarity; (iii) The effectiveness of techniques about organizational leadership development in Africa is debatable; and (iv) Many of the functions that managers are expected to fulfill are covered by organizational leadership theory. This comprehensive review significantly advances our efforts to understand and improve African organizational leadership practices.