Abstract
This paper provides a comprehensive review of literature relating to crisis leadership in an emerging economy. This leadership approach is pivotal to organisational resilience particularly in Nigeria as an emerging economy, which is characterised by frequent regulatory intervention, political instability, economic crisis and institutional instability which heightens the demand for an effective leadership practice. To explore crisis leadership in an emerging economy, a systematic literature review was undertaken due to its reproducibility, transparency and reliability. The SLR in this paper is conducted following the three-stage approach by Tranfield et al. (2023).
The review seeks to establish the current knowledge of crisis leadership within an emerging economy, to identify gaps in extant literature, understand core component of crisis leadership adopted by leaders in Nigeria, the challenges they encountered and how their competencies influence followers’ perception.
The findings from the review suggest a strong concentration of crisis leadership study in Western regions, revealing a limited understanding of how crisis leadership is conceptualised and practised in non-Western context. This disparity creates a significant knowledge gap regarding how leaders in non-Western context navigate and mange crises. What is unclear is the extent to which crisis leadership core components are relevant to Nigeria as an emerging economy as the findings highlights components such as sensemaking, decision making, effective communication, emotional intelligence and adaptability. Drawing on the literature review, the study recommends the conceptualisation of crisis leadership beyond the Western centric perspectives by proposing an integrated crisis leadership framework applicable for emerging economies.