Leadership, Innovation, and Sustainability in Supply Chains: A Systematic Literature Review and Research Agenda

Abstract

This systematic literature review synthesizes the evolving body of research on the interplay between leadership, innovation, and sustainability in supply chains, drawing on 128 peer-reviewed studies published between 2015 and 2025. The analysis reveals a significant surge in scholarly attention, particularly post-2020, driven by global pressures for resilience, circular economy adoption, and alignment with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Leadership especially transformational and servant styles emerges as a critical catalyst that orchestrates innovative processes such as eco-innovation, reverse logistics, blockchain-enabled traceability, and AI-driven resource optimization, thereby embedding sustainability across economic, environmental, and social dimensions. Transformational leadership inspires visionary, radical change and adaptive behaviors, while servant leadership fosters ethical stewardship, relational trust, and long-term stakeholder orientation, collectively enabling circular models, waste minimization, and resilience amid disruptions. Descriptive findings highlight methodological dominance of quantitative designs (50%), geographic concentration in developed economies (USA/Europe 60%), and sectoral focus on manufacturing (40%) and agri-food (25%), with notable under-representation of social sustainability, small and medium enterprises, and developing regions. Thematic synthesis identifies five interconnected clusters: leadership styles shaping supply chain dynamics, innovation pathways, sustainability pillars, antecedents and skills (empathy, trust, vision), and performance outcomes (efficiency, responsiveness, resilience). Despite robust evidence of leadership’s catalytic role, persistent gaps include limited longitudinal depth, cultural contingency models, and integrated frameworks for diverse contexts. The review advances prior work by explicitly bridging leadership with innovation as a pathway to holistic sustainability, offering both theoretical insight and a forward-looking agenda. It calls for methodological pluralism (qualitative and mixed-methods), empirical expansion into underrepresented sectors (e.g., healthcare) and geographies (e.g., Africa), theoretical integration with dynamic capabilities and relational views, and practical tools for leaders to assess and enhance innovation-sustainability alignment.

Keywords: Leadership Styles, Sustainable Innovation, Supply Chain Management, Circular Economy, Transformational Leadership, Servant Leadership