Most-cited research publications on educational leadership and management: a bibliometric analysis

There is a growing interest to understand the knowledge base in the area of educational leadership and management (EDLM) due to exceedingly large number of articles published. This study aims to explore the knowledge base within the highly cited papers of EDLM and their characteristics using science mapping. The 100 most-cited papers out of 5680 publications generated from Scopus database were utilised in bibliometric analysis. VOSviewer software was used to conduct bibliometric analysis such as co-citation and co-occurrence. The analysis identified that 100 most-cited papers were published between 1981 to 2018. The results showed that 12 countries contributed to the 100 most-cited publications with the most productive country being the United States, followed by United Kingdom, Canada, Netherlands, Hong Kong, and Australia. Findings also revealed United States representing maximum collaboration with other countries. The analysis identified that Kenneth Leithwood and Philip Hallinger were the greatest contributors to the highly cited articles. The most repeated key words wereleadership, school leadership, social justice, transformational leadership, educational leadership, and principals. Main schools of thought such as leadership for social justice were related with these key terms. The majority of publications came from Educational Administration Quarterly followed by Journal of Educational Administration, and School Leadership and Management. The results of this study helped to identify important areas guiding impactful research opportunities. Scholars looking forward to undertake research on EDLM can consider the major schools of thought that were identified in this analysis