Mapping Destructive Leadership Research: Intellectual Foundations, Thematic Evolution, and Global Trends (1966 to 2025)

Abstract

The Scopus-based core corpus consists of 704 English-language journal articles from 1966 to 2025, and this study analyzes the intellectual foundations, thematic evolution, and international collaboration structure of this research field. Since the records were retrieved on 22 October 2025, the 2025 data are analyzed as partial-year data rather than as a complete year. Bibliometric procedures included bibliographic description, thematic mapping, thematic evolution, document co-citation, author keyword co-occurrence, and country co-authorship networks, using association-strength normalization and performed with Biblioshiny and VOSviewer. A search-completeness test with the expanded query ("abusive supervision" and "despotic leadership") yielded 876 records, of which 695 matched the core corpus, and 181 were retained as a sensitivity set. The results reveal that publications were sparse for several decades, but after 2018 there was a significant rise in publications. Venue influence is concentrated in a small interdisciplinary core, with The Leadership Quarterly and Journal of Business Ethics providing theory and synthesis, and the Journal of Nursing Management and Frontiers in Psychology reflecting more recent applied diffusion. Document co-citation reveals a tripartite intellectual base comprising definitional accounts, exchange and justice mechanisms, and measurement or personality-trait traditions. Keyword structures identify three current fronts: abusive and exploitative mechanisms, dark-trait and ethics-oriented research, and healthcare-oriented studies of bullying, stress, and culture. Country co-authorship indicates a transatlantic and Asia-Pacific core with recent regional diversification. Overall, the field shows increasing convergence among fragmented labels while retaining important conceptual distinctions.