A study on managerial leadership in education: A systematic literature review

BACKGROUND: Articles on managerial leadership (ML) have been published from year to year, since 1950s. The use of ML theory in previous research is common, but some inconsistencies are found regarding the terms commonly used. In other words, there is a mismatch between the use of the term ML in article paper and structures. This will certainly have an impact on bias and ambiguity for future research literatures. NOVELTY: Theoretical review on this topic is rarely carried out, specifically in ML theory. The novelty of this research lies in the classification results of articles that used the term ML in accordance with the theory. OBJECTIVE: This theoretical review was conducted to examine the classification of accuracy of articles which were using the term ML in title with four consistency and accuracy indicators on the article structures starting from the problem, aim, literature, results and discussion, as well as conclusion sections. METHOD: This review as a qualitative literature research used a language and historical approach, as well as a ML theory. This study Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) statement. The technique and instrument used was bibliographic instruments, comprehensive list of keywords and mixed search terms to search the articles online with the help of Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox browsers. A total of 68 articles published from 1959 to 2022 as a final reviewed. They were obtained from several well-known digital journal content such as Jstor, Proquest, Oxford University Press, Google Scholar, and National Library, as well as various journals under major publishers such as Elsevier, Taylor & Francis, SAGE, Emerald, Brill, and Wiley. The data collected were analyzed using content analysis with 4 indicators of consistent (accurate & additional) and inconsistent (difference & additional), and 4 accuracy category of accuracy, appropriate, bias, and error for determaining the articles classification, and validated them by using triangulation and grounded theory. RESULTS: The results showed that in 1959 the first article appeared using the word ML, in 2012 the first and only article appeared that only used ML, and the last is in 2022. Then, the consistency of the title with other article sections is 17 articles (25% of 68) according to the accurate term indicator. Last, the accuracy of articles was divided into four categories: 10 articles (15% of 68) in the accuracy category. CONTRIBUTION: This systematic review contributes the article classification that can become a more established scientific roadmap of references and reasoning of studying ML.