The Dark Side of Leadership: A Review of Graduate Theses in Turkey

Abstract

This study aims to provide an overview of the research line of postgraduate theses on the dark side of leadership in Turkey and to see the course of academic interest. The research was conducted by adopting a semi-systematic literature review method. Five concepts related to the dark side of leadership and management were included in the research process. These are toxic leadership, abusive management, destructive leadership, narcissistic leadership and unethical leadership. The five concepts were searched in the “thesis title” section of the thesis center of the Council of Higher Education (YOK Tez) and theses with the relevant concepts in the title were included in the research process. There were 43 theses on toxic leadership, 20 on abusive management, 7 on destructive leadership, and one each on narcissistic leadership and unethical leadership. Theses were classified under the categories of author, year, graduate level, department, research field, independent, dependent and mediator/regulator variables, and quantitative/qualitative research designs. The results show that the theses mostly addressed the issue of toxic leadership, were conducted with quantitative research designs, were predominantly conducted in the department of business administration, followed by theses in educational sciences. Based on the theses examined, it is believed that making more frequent use of qualitative research methods in the theses to be conducted in the relevant field, using more diverse and purposeful samples, and moving towards discovering new relationships by going deeper into the problem with models consisting of many different concepts will contribute both to the scientific development of the research field and to the organizational-individual and therefore social level.