The Leadership QuarterlyScholarly leadership of the study of leadership:A review of The Leadership Quarterly's second decade, 20002009: R7806205510115

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The Leadership QuarterlyScholarly leadership of the study of leadership: A review of The Leadership Quarterly's second decade, 20002009William L. Gardner (1) , Kevin B. Lowe (2) , Todd W. Moss (1) , Kevin T. Mahoney (3) , Claudia C. Cogliser (1) (1) Texas Tech University, United States(2) University of North Carolina-Greensboro, United States(3) Louisiana Tech University, United States Facts & FiguresImpact Factor:2.9025-Year Impact Factor:4.919Issues per year:6

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a b s t r a c tIn a reprise of Lowe and Gardner's (2000) review of The Leadership Quarterly's (LQ) first decade as a premier outlet for scholarly leadership research, we review 353 articles published in LQ during its second decade. Multiple methods were employed to prepare this review, including:*

a b s t r a c tinterviews with the journal's current Senior Editor and Associate Editors; an assessment of LQs impact, reputation, and most cited articles through citation analyses; a content analysis of article type (theory, empirical, and methods), contributors (e.g., discipline, nationality, and institutional affiliation), theoretical foundations, research strategies, sample location/type, data collection methods, and analytical procedures; survey and follow-up focus groups conducted with LQ Editorial Review Board members; and qualitative analyses to assess the prevalent themes, contributions, and trends reflected in LQ during its second decade. Drawing from these sources, we describe anticipated directions for future research.*

Introduction The purpose of this manuscript is to review the second decade of research published in The Leadership Quarterly (LQ). In conducting this review we employed multiple methodologies (e.g. content analyses, citation analysis, interviews, and questionnaires) and considered multiple antecedent variables including editorial staff emphases and reviewer decision processes that influence what appears in LQ. Thus our broad research questions include: Is there a consensus among leadership scholars that the content of LQ represents the highest level of leadership scholarship? What are the topical characteristics (methods and design) and content (theories and constructs) of the research that appears in LQ? Our understanding of where leadership research might be going?*

Journal reputation of LQLQ's emphasis on rigor and scholarship has led to a natural interest in its quality relative to other management and psychology journals. The 2000 LQ content analysis utilized the Anbar Intelligence Service that rated several journals in the strategy content area (LQ included) on research and practical implications, readability, and originality. LQ was judged quite favorably on those dimensions (Lowe & Gardner, 2000). Here, we examine the impact of LQ using multiple impact measures.*

Journal reputation of LQ The results of our impact analysis are presented in Table 1.Shows that LQ had an h-index of 37 and a g-index of 50, ranking it 10th on this list of elite journals.Overall, these statistics show that LQ is comparable with other quality journals in international business and management, many of which appeal to more general audiences. LQ can also be compared favorably with the overall impact factors of other fields:*

Journal reputation of LQ *

Most cited articlesTo gain further insight into the relative influence of LQ publications from the journal's second decade in comparison to the first, we examined the Top 50 most cited LQ publications.Table 5 provides a summary of the results by ranking the Top 50 most cited LQ articles in order of cites per year. We also report the total number of cites, the rank in terms of overall cites, and the type of article (theoretical, empirical, and/or special issue). *

Most cited articles*

Most cited articles*

*New directionsFourteen of the leadership theory categories developed through the current content analysis are grouped under the broader New Directions category. These are listed in Table 6 in order of frequency, with Contextual Influences on Leadership being the most common (38/5.6%), followed closely by the Development and Identification of Leaders and Leadership (37/5.4%), Ethical, Servant, Spiritual and Authentic Leadership (36/5.3%), and Leading for Creativity and Innovation (35/5.1%) categories. The emergence of the latter two categories and the Leadership and Emotions and Complexity Theory of Leadership categories were bolstered by the dedication of Yearly Review articles to these topics. The least frequent New Directions categories included Leadership Effects of Task, Technology, Distance and Virtuality (9/1.3%), Ideological and Pragmatic Leadership (8/1.2%), Destructive Leadership (8/1.2%) and Leading Change in Organizations (6/.9%). Nevertheless, the fact that none of these categories were reflected during LQ's first decade suggests that these are ascending theoretical perspectives.

*New directions

*Survey results

There is much that leadership scholars can learn about how to improve the likelihood of having their manuscript accepted at LQ. As indicated in Table 12, attention to proper methods, a clear contribution to the leadership literature, and rock-solid use of theory will address the most prevalent failings in recently rejected manuscripts (28%, 25%, and 21%, respectively). Clear writing that has been copyedited to remove unforced errors will also increase the chances of acceptance (11%). The use of data that matches the focal research question, a thorough literature review, and a focus on leadership is also important.

*Survey results

*Editorial Policy (Journal) The Leadership Quarterly is an international journal of political, social, and behavioral science dedicated to advancing theory, research, and applications concerning leadership. Contributions to thinking about leadership are desired from many disciplinary perspectives, including political science, sociology, economics, anthropology, psychology, and history. Equally desirable are contributions from interdisciplinary fields such as human resource management, international management, administrative science, strategic management, labor studies, and organization theory and behavior. The aim of the journal is to present scholarly research, theory, and developmental application from the diverse fields of inquiry about leadership.

*Editorial Policy(Journal) The journal would like to review studies of leaders from all walks of social life. This includes formal leaders in business and industry, government, labor unions, professional associations, human service organizations, and the military. It also includes people with little or no formal organizational power, such as community elites, consumer opinion leaders, social movement activists, informal leaders in organizations, and others who produce leadership effects without benefit of formal position. Comparative studies of leaders detailing differences and similarities based in nation-state, culture, region, social class, race, gender, and age are welcome.

*Types of paper (paper) LQ encourages the submission of articles by authors working from objectivist, interpretive, critical, or other epistemologies. Given the diversity of perspectives in current research, the journal expects to review a variety of types of articles encompassing the following: Traditional quantitative and/or qualitative empirical articles are welcome. Their quality will be judged in terms of the importance of the issue, the underlying logic of the argument relevant to theory, the rigor and appropriateness of the methods employed, and the contribution to knowledge resulting from the research. Integrative research reviews also are welcome. These articles may be traditional narrative reviews or meta-analyses that result in theories, models, or further research agenda. The use of meta-analysis is encouraged whenever appropriate data are available.

*Types of paper (paper) Traditional theoretical pieces that suggest new theory are welcome. These articles should advance conventional thought, include testable propositions or hypotheses, correct flawed thinking, redirect current theoretical views, or advance new research paradigms, thus, bridging the gap between theory construction and theory testing. Well-constructed, well-argued conceptual papers that are significantly thought-provoking and on an important topic also are welcome. These articles, like traditional theoretical pieces, should add new thought to the literature, extend current thought in a new direction, pose new questions/issues, or propose a new paradigm. Their quality, as with traditional theoretical pieces, will be judged in terms of insightfulness, creativity, completeness, and the degree to which they are amenable to empirical investigation.

*Future research directions(:)(:) (:)

*Future research directions(,) (:---)

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