Leadership and organizational innovation in the third sector: A systematic literature review

The impact of the global recession has served to increase pressure on non-profit organizations resources. Executive leadership is an essential component of the success of these institutions. The two-fold purpose of this article is to provide a state-of-the-art overview about the existing literature on leadership and organizational innovation in the third sector, as well as to identify research gaps leading to a research model, which can be used in further empirical research. For this, we used the collection of existing literature in the Web of Science. The 144 articles selected in the database were analysed using the VOSviewer software. Results show a concern with the renewal of management bodies and a lack of qualified leaders. This study contributes to the construction of an action agenda leading to the establishment of new leadership and organizational innovation model for the third sector.