The Intellectual Landscape of Green Transformational Leadership

Abstract

Green Transformational Leadership (GTL) has emerged as a critical driver of organizational sustainability by integrating environmental values into leadership practices and organizational strategies. Despite the rapid growth of GTL research, the literature remains fragmented, limiting a comprehensive understanding of its current intellectual structure and future research priorities. This study systematically reviews the GTL literature by integrating the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) framework, bibliographic coupling, and qualitative content analysis. A total of 175 eligible articles retrieved from the Scopus database were analyzed. Bibliographic coupling revealed the current intellectual structure of GTL research through five thematic clusters: corporate social responsibility (CSR), green human resource management (GHRM), employee pro-environmental behavior, green creativity, and green innovation. Building on these clusters, qualitative content analysis identified key research gaps and proposed future research directions, leading to the development of an integrated conceptual framework that illustrates the sequential relationships among CSR, GTL, GHRM, employee green behavior, green creativity, and green innovation. Theoretically, this study strengthens the knowledge base of GTL by providing a systematic understanding of its intellectual structure and future research agenda. Practically, it offers researchers, managers, and organizations across diverse industries a comprehensive reference for developing sustainability-oriented leadership strategies and advancing sustainable organizational practices.