ARE CURRENT RESEARCHERS ON THE LEADERSHIP THEME STUCK INTO THE 20TH CENTURY MENTAL MODEL?

representações sociais e modelos mentais dos séculos XX e XXI

Abstract

The main objective of the study was to verify whether the orientation of scientific research on the leadership theme gets close to a traditional or contemporary approach, when analyzing the main databases of publications on the subject, between 2014 and 2021, in the English and Portuguese languages. Initially, a qualitative approach was carried out, through a Focus Group with experts on leadership. Afterwards, a quantitative approach was followed, through bibliometric research, in which the 28 defined descriptors were investigated on prestigious and non-prestigious bases. The theoretical contribution was to present an updated list of descriptors that can be used for further investigations on the leadership subject. The practical contributions were the qualification of the analyzed databases, in English and Portuguese, and the behavior trends of the leadership theme. The main conclusions were: (i) the finding of low scientific production and the need for more prestigious publications in Portuguese on the topics of leadership and management, (ii) the recognition that the traditional mental model of the 20th century is massively disseminated in explicit communications in English, when compared to the contemporary mental model, with an inverse behavior in Portuguese. This phenomenon has increased over the last few years, contradicting the research expectations.