The intellectual structure and evolution of servant leadership research in educational organizations: a SciMAT-based bibliometric review, 1998–2025

Abstract

Purpose This study analyses the thematic evolution of servant leadership research in educational organizations between 1998 and 2025. Design/methodology/approach Grounded in a bibliometric research design, the study provides a science-mapping analysis of the research field using SciMAT software, which enables period-based, comparative analyses within and across periods. The analysis included 175 articles retrieved from WoS and Scopus databases, across three periods: Period 1 (1998–2019), Period 2 (2020–2022), and Period 3 (2023–2025). Fin..