An Explorative Review of E-Leadership Studies

This study aimed to explore the field of educational leadership and educational technology innovations. In order to understand the extent to which e-leadership was discussed, content analyses on selected conference papers, book chapters, thesis and professional journals spanning across 2000 to 2016 was conducted. An extensive review of the literature found a total of 45 articles mainly on e-leadership, virtual leadership, leading virtual teams, school ICT leadership and e-leaders in both education and non-educational setting. These articles focus on six main themes of e-leadership, which are challenges, leadership styles, trust building, training and development, culture, e-leader skills and guidelines. Findings indicate that empirical studies on e-leadership are scarce and more studies in this area need to be conducted in the digital era. In addition, a proposed model of e-leadership effectiveness and variables that are associated with e-leadership is included in this paper. Subsequently, the missing link for future studies is discussed.