{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,9,21]],"date-time":"2026-09-21T01:09:41Z","timestamp":1789952981769,"version":"4.0.1"},"update-to":[{"DOI":"10.12688\/f1000research.166667.1","type":"new_version","label":"New version","source":"publisher","updated":{"date-parts":[[2025,9,19]],"date-time":"2025-09-19T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1758240000000}}],"reference-count":43,"publisher":"F1000 Research Ltd","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2025,9,19]],"date-time":"2025-09-19T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1758240000000},"content-version":"tdm","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"funder":[{"DOI":"10.13039\/501100006565","name":"University of Johannesburg","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","id":[{"id":"10.13039\/501100006565","id-type":"DOI","asserted-by":"publisher"}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":["f1000research.com"],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["F1000Res"],"abstract":"<ns3:p>The Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR), the COVID-19 pandemic, and the rapidly digitising educational system due to advances in artificial intelligence (AI) have made a change in leadership imperative. A key framework for improving organisational effectiveness in handling these changes is digital leadership. It combines technological competencies with traditional leadership. Even with increased scholarly interest, there remains a gap in the thorough analysis of the field\u2019s intellectual framework, thematic evolution, and collaborative dynamics. This study addresses this gap by conducting a bibliometric analysis of digital leadership research in education from 1993 to 2024, employing RStudio to map publication trends, influential sources, author productivity, conceptual themes, and social structures. Data from 338 Scopus-indexed documents reveal a significant rise in publications post-2010, peaking in 2023, with core journals such as Education and Information Technologies and Cogent Education dominating the field. However, the notable decline observed in 2024 indicates that the decline in publications may be due to research saturation, a change in research priorities, or funding. Prolific authors like Karakose T., Altinay F., and Z. underscore the centrality of collaborative research, while thematic mapping identifies key clusters: digital competence, virtual leadership, and institutional innovation. Thematic evolution highlights a post-pandemic pivot toward digital transformation and AI integration, though niche areas like K-12 digital leadership remain underdeveloped. Social network analysis reveals dispersed yet growing global collaborations, with the United States, Turkey, and the United Kingdom as dominant hubs, while disparities persist in Global South participation. The study\u2019s implications emphasize the need for interdisciplinary research, equitable global partnerships, and policy frameworks that prioritize digital leadership training for educators. Practitioners are encouraged to implement adaptive strategies to leverage emerging technologies, ensuring sustainable learning outcomes. This analysis provides a foundation for future research and practice in digital leadership by delineating the field\u2019s conceptual and social networks, thereby bridging the divides between theory, policy, and institutional practice.<\/ns3:p>","DOI":"10.12688\/f1000research.166667.2","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2025,9,26]],"date-time":"2025-09-26T05:00:08Z","timestamp":1758862808000},"page":"687","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.12688\/f1000research.crossmark-policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":6,"title":["Digital Leadership in Education: A Bibliometric Analysis of Research Trends from 1993 to 2024"],"prefix":"10.12688","volume":"14","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-7234-0504","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"John Olayemi","family":"OKunlola","sequence":"first","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Suraiya Rathankoomar","family":"Naicker","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"2560","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2025,9,19]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref1","first-page":"137-152","article-title":"A Bibliometric Analysis on Research Trends of Digital Leadership in Education.","volume":"21","author":"M Adeoye","year":"2023","journal-title":"PEDAGOGIA."},{"key":"ref2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1007\/978-","author":"A Arham","year":"2023","journal-title":"Digitalisation: Opportunities and challenges for business."},{"key":"ref3","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"959-975","DOI":"10.1016\/j.joi.2017.08.007","article-title":"Bibliometrix: An R tool for comprehensive science mapping analysis.","volume":"11","author":"M Aria","year":"2017","journal-title":"J. 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Methods."}],"container-title":["F1000Research"],"original-title":[],"language":"en","link":[{"URL":"https:\/\/f1000research.com\/articles\/14-687\/v2\/xml","content-type":"application\/xml","content-version":"vor","intended-application":"text-mining"},{"URL":"https:\/\/f1000research.com\/articles\/14-687\/v2\/pdf","content-type":"application\/pdf","content-version":"vor","intended-application":"text-mining"},{"URL":"https:\/\/f1000research.com\/articles\/14-687\/v2\/iparadigms","content-type":"unspecified","content-version":"vor","intended-application":"similarity-checking"}],"deposited":{"date-parts":[[2025,11,20]],"date-time":"2025-11-20T19:00:15Z","timestamp":1763665215000},"score":1,"resource":{"primary":{"URL":"https:\/\/f1000research.com\/articles\/14-687\/v2"}},"subtitle":[],"short-title":[],"issued":{"date-parts":[[2025,9,19]]},"references-count":43,"URL":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.12688\/f1000research.166667.2","relation":{"has-version":[{"id-type":"doi","id":"10.12688\/f1000research.166667.1","asserted-by":"subject"}],"has-review":[{"id-type":"doi","id":"10.5256\/f1000research.188151.r415532","asserted-by":"subject"},{"id-type":"doi","id":"10.5256\/f1000research.188151.r415533","asserted-by":"subject"},{"id-type":"doi","id":"10.5256\/f1000research.188151.r416211","asserted-by":"subject"},{"id-type":"doi","id":"10.5256\/f1000research.188151.r416211","asserted-by":"object"},{"id-type":"doi","id":"10.5256\/f1000research.188151.r415533","asserted-by":"object"},{"id-type":"doi","id":"10.5256\/f1000research.188151.r415532","asserted-by":"object"}]},"ISSN":["2046-1402"],"issn-type":[{"value":"2046-1402","type":"electronic"}],"subject":[],"published":{"date-parts":[[2025,9,19]]},"assertion":[{"value":"Indexed","URL":"https:\/\/f1000research.com\/articles\/14-687\/v2#article-reports","order":0,"name":"referee-status","label":"Referee status","group":{"name":"current-referee-status","label":"Current Referee Status"}},{"value":"10.5256\/f1000research.188151.r415533, Asem Obied, Palestine Technical University-Kadoorie, Ramallah, 26 Sep 2025, version 2, indexed","URL":"https:\/\/f1000research.com\/articles\/14-687\/v2#referee-response-415533","order":0,"name":"referee-response-415533","label":"Referee Report","group":{"name":"article-reports","label":"Article Reports"}},{"value":"10.5256\/f1000research.188151.r415532, Moses Adeleke ADEOYE, Al-Hikmah University, Ilorin, 26 Sep 2025, version 2, indexed","URL":"https:\/\/f1000research.com\/articles\/14-687\/v2#referee-response-415532","order":1,"name":"referee-response-415532","label":"Referee Report","group":{"name":"article-reports","label":"Article Reports"}},{"value":"10.5256\/f1000research.183690.r404289, Elizabeth Valentine, Victoria University of Wellington, Wellington, Wellington, 26 Aug 2025, version 1, 1 approved with reservations, 2 not approved","URL":"https:\/\/f1000research.com\/articles\/14-687\/v1#referee-response-404289","order":2,"name":"referee-response-404289","label":"Referee Report","group":{"name":"article-reports","label":"Article Reports"}},{"value":"<b>John Olayemi OKunlola<\/b>; \n<i>Posted: 13 Sep 2025<\/i>;  The study applies\n<b> <\/b>\n<b>a bibliometric approach as its guiding framework<\/b>\n<b>, <\/b>offering both methodological and conceptual grounding. Since bibliometric analysis itself functions as a theoretical lens, additional frameworks may not be strictly necessary. Thank you for this valuable feedback. We acknowledge the comment and have expanded the&nbsp;\n<i>implications of the study<\/i>&nbsp;section to provide actionable recommendations for policymakers and practitioners. The inaccuracy in the usage of the years 1993 and 2010 has been corrected. Identified gaps in the abstracts have been re-examined and catered for. \u201cThe methodological section outlines the use of RStudio and bibliometric analysis adequately, but fails to provide specific information on the software packages or analysis thresholds\u201d. This has been treated in the methodological section as identified and suggested. Figure 4: The Sankey Citation Flow Map was appropriately integrated into the main manuscript. Perhaps a mismatch occurred during copy-editing. In this study, \n<b>maturity denotes thematic coherence and growing intellectual cohesion, not conceptual closure<\/b>\n<b>.<\/b> The findings show sustained evolution, as emerging themes like AI integration and institutional digital capacity continue to expand the field\u2019s boundaries. We appreciate this constructive observation. While the manuscript drew significantly on prolific authors such as Karakose and Altinay, this was due to their high visibility in the bibliometric dataset. As a bibliometric-driven study, the analysis is inherently bounded by the available data indexed in Scopus, which naturally foregrounds the most productive and frequently cited authors. We thank the reviewer for this observation. The manuscript did state the use of RStudio and \n<i>bibliometrix<\/i>\n<i>,<\/i> though not explicitly. For clarity, we now specify that the analysis was conducted using the \n<i>biblioshiny<\/i>\n<i> <\/i>interface of \n<i>bibliometrix<\/i>, with thresholds and clustering parameters applied accordingly. The manuscript has been revised to include the search strings, field tags, Boolean operators, and parameter thresholds used in RStudio, ensuring methodological transparency and reproducibility. In this study, \n<b>maturity denotes thematic coherence and growing intellectual cohesion, not conceptual closure<\/b>\n<b>.<\/b> The findings show sustained evolution, as emerging themes like AI integration and institutional digital capacity continue to expand the field\u2019s boundaries. We sincerely appreciate the reviewer\u2019s thoughtful suggestion. However, the focus of this study is deliberately confined to \n<b>digital leadership in education<\/b>, as this represents both the authors\u2019 research niche and the central objective of the paper. While expanding to broader public-sector transformations (e.g., government or health) could generate comparative insights, it would risk diluting the study\u2019s primary purpose: to map, analyze, and advance understanding of digital leadership specifically within the educational sector. We therefore retain this focus to ensure alignment with the study\u2019s aims, while noting that future research may extend the methodology to cross-sectoral contexts. We appreciate this insightful comment. Indeed, the \n<b>education value chain<\/b> linking pedagogy, student experience, and institutional processes with data and technology architectures is an important dimension of digital transformation. However, the present study\u2019s scope is confined to digital leadership within the school system. To avoid diluting its focus, we did not explicitly extend into business or financial architectures. Nonetheless, we agree that future research could productively integrate this dual focus by exploring how digital leadership mediates the intersection of pedagogy with institutional strategy, performance, and compliance outcomes. As suggested, the impact of COVID-19 on digital transformation in education has now been incorporated and supported with references to Kang (2021), Deroncele-Acosta et al. (2023), and Mhlanga &amp; Moloi (2020)","URL":"https:\/\/f1000research.com\/articles\/14-687\/v2#referee-comment-14580","order":3,"name":"referee-comment-14580","label":"Referee Comment","group":{"name":"article-reports","label":"Article Reports"}},{"value":"10.5256\/f1000research.188151.r416211, Sulaimon Adewale, Department of Educational Foundation, University of South Africa, Pretoria, 27 Sep 2025, version 2, indexed","URL":"https:\/\/f1000research.com\/articles\/14-687\/v2#referee-response-416211","order":4,"name":"referee-response-416211","label":"Referee Report","group":{"name":"article-reports","label":"Article Reports"}},{"value":"The author(s) declared that no grants were involved in supporting this work","order":5,"name":"grant-information","label":"Grant Information"},{"value":"This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Licence, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.","order":0,"name":"copyright-info","label":"Copyright"}]}}