Issue Leadership Research Trends and Future Research Agenda

The purpose of this study is to present research trends and future research questions on issue leadership. For this study, 43 research articles on issue leadership published journals in korea were analysed for research trends. First, we analysed the general status of the articles, including when they were published, the journals in which they were published, and the characteristics of the research sample. Next, we analysed the research methodology, including the type of research, data collection method, measurement tools, and reliability and validity verification methods. Finally, we classified the research models of the analysed papers into outcome variable verification research and antecedent variable verification research, analysed the impact of issue leadership on outcomes and the impact between issue leadership and variables, and presented the differences between the research models. In this regard, empirical research on issue leadership has been conducted since 2000, and until recently, two to five empirical studies were conducted each year. Most studies have used issue leadership as an independent variable to identify the causal relationship between issue leadership and outcome variables. Self-efficacy, adaptive strain, and task interdependence have been considered as antecedents, and variables such as job satisfaction, organisational performance, and organisational citizenship behaviour have been studied as outcome variables. The mediation effect between issue leadership and outcome variables was studied by considering variables such as followership, empowerment, and organisational sponsorship perceptions, and the moderator variable was studied by considering variables such as task environment, supervisor support, and CEO competence. The significance of this study is that by comprehensively analysing and discussing the research achievements on issue leadership through a review of the domestic literature on issue leadership, this study not only provided the overall flow of issue leadership research but also suggested future research directions. Finally, the research limitations of the analysed papers and research issues for further research were presented.