What do We Know about Vision? A Sustainability Lens

Abstract

Given the paucity of knowledge on sustainability-related organizational vision, the present study’s objective is to examine the current state of the organizational vision knowledge base with a sustainability focus. It adapts the Integrated Systematic Literature Review approach. Five hundred and four journal articles from Scopus between 1981 and October 2022 are identified and reviewed. Influential journals, scholars and documents concerning organizational vision in the sustainability context are identified, along with four schools of thought on Organizational Vision: Vision Component, Vision Motivation, Transformational Vision and Educational Vision. Overall, findings suggest that organizational vision scholars have focused their efforts on organizational vision in a way that leads to organizational productivity as opposed to sustainability productivity. This knowledge gap is fundamentally critical for sustainability scholars and practitioners alike since (a) organizational culture with vision as a core component is a pre-condition for sustainable enterprise development and (b) sustainability transformations are fundamental changes in cultures that move socio-technical systems toward sustainable production and consumption. Drawing from the identified body of knowledge, a model linking organizational vision and sustainability-related organizational performance is derived as a major contribution of the present study. The model explains how vision components theoretically lead to improved sustainability performance, followed by theoretical, empirical and practical implications as significant contributions to the field of corporate sustainability.

1. Introduction

Organizational vision has been regarded as critical to effective leadership since at least the 1990s [1,2,3,4,5]. It is often viewed as a necessary leadership tool in times of significant change that require organizational transformation. As a result, many organizations in the corporate world develop and publish their vision statements just about everywhere with a hope to improve their organizational performance [6].

While (a) organizational vision is frequently considered as the organization’s future destination, (b) many organizations are transforming themselves toward sustainability [7,8], (c) numerous scholars have long engaged in organizational vision research and (d) organizational vision leads to corporate brand, a sustainability performance outcome [9], most organizational vision studies have not been addressed in a sustainability context through taking into consideration a whole range of stakeholders [7,10,11]. Very little is known about what an organizational vision that leads to ensuring organizational sustainability looks like [7,10,11].

With the main objective to discover cutting-edge knowledge on sustainability-related organizational vision, the present study attempts to provide the first comprehensive literature review on organizational vision through a sustainability lens. The review starts by introducing knowledge gaps, contributions and research questions, followed by the methodology used to answer the research questions. Findings are then presented and discussed, followed by deriving the cutting-edge knowledge on sustainability organizational vision and discussing future research directions.

2. Knowledge Gaps and Research Questions

Although (a) numerous scholars have engaged in organizational vision research since at least the late 1990s [12], (b) scholars started to recognize the important role that organizational vision plays in ensuring corporate sustainability since at least 2005 [13,14] and (c) sustainable production and consumption are viewed as practices among sustainable enterprises [13,15], not much is empirically, conceptually and theoretically known about organizational vision leading to improving sustainability performance [16], which is the first knowledge gap. In particular, although the role of stakeholders in ensuring corporate sustainability has been emphasized throughout the entire literature [17,18,19], little is known about vision that accommodates a whole range of stakeholders [20]. The present study attempts to discover the knowledge base of such a vision.

Given that sustainability is a long-term concept, sustainable enterprises have been found to adopt a long-term view reinforced by a widely shared organizational vision [13,15,20,21,22]. However, little is known about what characterizes an organizational vision behind this long-term view [16], which is the second knowledge gap. Additionally, as part of adopting the long-term view, sustainable organizations develop and maintain a strong organizational culture with a widely shared organizational vision to guide their direction [15,20,21,22]. Such a culture is also a pre-condition for the development of corporate sustainability [23]. In other words, without an organizationally shared vision, an enterprise is unlikely to be sustainable. In the sustainability context, the widely recognized “cleaner production” concept is not only about changing raw materials, processes and products, but changing corporate culture and the attitudes of people [24]. These attitudes also include ones about responsible production and consumption.

Enabled by strong organizational culture, sustainable enterprises have also been found to promote self-governing, self-leading teams in their organization [13,15]. In this context, shared vision among members is not an end goal in and of itself [25]. Instead, it facilitates common objectives, perspectives, outputs and outcomes [25], which is critical given that organizations are empirically goal-seeking as opposed to goal-realizing systems, indicating that organizations always search for and alter their objectives [26,27]. However, very little is known about organizational vision that facilitates self-governing organizational members [28], which is the third knowledge gap.

Although organizational vision is regarded as important to sustainable enterprises as discussed above and knowledge gaps continue to exist, no existing systematic review on organizational vision specifically from a sustainability perspective has been reported. These knowledge gaps on sustainability organizational vision are fundamental to the leadership field, given that (a) organizational vision is considered as core to the organizational culture and the starting point of any transformational process [3] and (b) transformations toward sustainability are fundamental changes in cultures, structures and practices that move socio-technical systems toward sustainable production and consumption [29]. These knowledge gaps are even more important to practicing corporate leaders and managers as sustainability problems are difficult to tackle with “management as usual” [29,30,31,32,33], indicating that knowledge about vision leading to improving organizational productivity, as opposed to sustainability productivity, is not sufficient.

To fill in the knowledge gaps and contribute to the body of knowledge, the present study’s prime objective is to reveal the existing body of knowledge on organizational vision through a sustainability lens. It will address the following research questions (RQs):

RQ #1: What are the authors and journals with the highest impact for research on organizational vision in the sustainability context?

RQ #2: What are the topical foci of interest among scholars in the organizational vision knowledge base in the sustainability context?

RQ #3: What is the intellectual structure of the organizational vision knowledge base in the sustainability context?

RQ #4: To what extent do organizational vision scholars take into account the sustainability perspective in their research?

RQ #5: What is the cutting-edge knowledge in the organizational vision knowledge base in the sustainability context?

To answer the RQs, the systematic review begins with defining organizational vision, since vision can mean different things to different people [16]. Then, the present study continues with an introduction of the systematic approach to provide answers to the RQs, followed by the presentation and discussion of the results. The present review concludes with a discussion of its limitations, pointing out future directions for research and introducing important implications.

3. Organizational Vision

Although the critical role of vision in organizations is widely regarded, the concept of vision has been defined very differently among scholars [34,35]. This definitional confusion is fundamentally critical to the development of organizational vision knowledge production because the various vision definitions can affect theorizing on vision in many significant ways. Moreover, in the definitional confusion, scholars also disagree whether and how mission, organizational values and philosophy, and corporate strategy and goals are different from vision [16]. Clearly, no common agreement exists among scholars and practitioners as to what “vision” is [16].

Building upon the definitions by Baum et al. [12] and Mumford and Strange [36], Kantabutra [16] defined vision as “a mental model that a leader defines, given that it is the actual mental model that guides his/her choices and actions” (p. 4). Since sustainable organizations are frequently characterized by self-leading, self- managing organizational members sharing a mental model [13], this vision definition still holds true. Therefore, this definition of vision as a shared mental model among organizational members is adopted to guide the review in the present study.

4. Methodology

The Integrated Systematic Literature Review approach [20] or ISLR is adapted in the present study and explained step by step here. First, a basic keyword search is conducted, followed by a literature survey to identify eligible literature relevant to the topic. Next, a bibliometric analysis is conducted, followed by identifying the main results from the analysis. The results are then discussed, followed by a formulation of a theoretical framework based on the important literature drawn from the bibliometric analysis. The study is concluded by discussing knowledge gaps, challenges and opportunities for future research.

In the present study, relevant literature is identified using Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis (PRISMA) and is visualized through bibliometric analysis. Finally, the Grounded Theory approach is used to analyze and synthesize for the cutting-edge knowledge on sustainability organizational vision.

4.1. Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis (PRISMA)

The PRISMA guidelines [37] are followed in systematically reviewing the organizational vision literature. Published documents from the Scopus database were used since the database is widely recognized for review purposes [38]. According to Scopus, it is also more inclusive than other databases as it delivers more global content (50–230% more depending on region) than the nearest competitor, particularly in the field of social sciences. In addition, the co-citation analysis approach, to be discussed below, allows for important documents outside Scopus to be included in the study.

In identifying documents from the Scopus database, a keyword search was used, followed by a search for published documents relevant to organizational vision. An initial literature survey was then performed to identify frequently found keywords: “vision”, “leader*” and “vision*”. Since the present study is interested in organizational vision, “vision” is used as a key word. In addition, since vision is widely regarded as a strategic tool for leaders, “leader*” is used to represent leaders and leadership. Finally, “vision*” is used to represent “visionary” and “visioning”. These keywords were used as search titles, abstracts and keywords, resulting in 504 documents. The query string used for the search is below:

(ABS (vision) AND ABS (leader*) AND TITLE (vision*)) AND (EXCLUDE (SRCTYPE, “p”) OR EXCLUDE (SRCTYPE, “b”) OR EXCLUDE (SRCTYPE, “d”) OR EXCLUDE (SRCTYPE, “k”)) AND (EXCLUDE (DOCTYPE, “cp”) OR EXCLUDE (DOCTYPE, “ch”) OR EXCLUDE (DOCTYPE, “bk”) OR EXCLUDE (DOCTYPE, “no”) OR EXCLUDE (DOCTYPE, “sh”) OR EXCLUDE (DOCTYPE, “ed”) OR EXCLUDE (DOCTYPE, “tb”)) AND (EXCLUDE (SUBJAREA, “CHEM”) OR EXCLUDE (SUBJAREA, “MATH”) OR EXCLUDE (SUBJAREA, “NEUR”) OR EXCLUDE (SUBJAREA, “PHYS”) OR EXCLUDE (SUBJAREA, “MATE”) OR EXCLUDE (SUBJAREA, “BIOC”)) AND (EXCLUDE (EXACTSRCTITLE, “IEEE Robotics And Automation Letters”)) AND (EXCLUDE (LANGUAGE, “Spanish”) OR EXCLUDE (LANGUAGE, “French”) OR EXCLUDE (LANGUAGE, “Chinese”) OR EXCLUDE (LANGUAGE, “Arabic”) OR EXCLUDE (LANGUAGE, “German”) OR EXCLUDE (LANGUAGE, “Turkish”) OR EXCLUDE (LANGUAGE, “Bulgarian”) OR EXCLUDE (LANGUAGE, “Italian”) OR EXCLUDE (LANGUAGE, “Portuguese”) OR EXCLUDE (LANGUAGE, “Thai”)) AND (EXCLUDE (EXACTSRCTITLE, “IEEE Transactions On Control Systems Technology”)) AND (EXCLUDE (EXACTSRCTITLE, “IEEE Transactions On Industrial Electronics”)) AND (EXCLUDE (EXACTSRCTITLE, “IEEE Transactions On Cybernetics”)) AND (EXCLUDE (EXACTSRCTITLE, “IEEE Transactions On Neural Networks And Learning Systems”) OR EXCLUDE (EXACTSRCTITLE, “IEEE Transactions On Robotics”))

In the screening process, the inclusion/exclusion criteria in

Table 1. Criteria for literature inclusion and exclusion.

Selection Criteria	Inclusion	Exclusion
Type of access	All	Non-accessible
Period of literature	Undefined–2022	-
Subject area	Organization management aspects	All others
Type of document	Journal	All the rest
Language	English	All others

below were used as the guidelines. The study is interested in only English, peer-reviewed journal articles. To ensure that all relevant papers, regardless of when they were published, were found, the Scopus search timeframe was kept unspecified in order to conduct a comprehensive literature assessment on organizational vision. The first paper that Scopus found to be of interest was published in 1981. The data collection took place in the year 2022; thus, in the present study, we could only look that far forward.

In the eligibility stage, the document eligibility was verified by two researchers through basic content analysis. All abstracts were read to ensure their relevance to the present study. Any differing opinions were resolved after a consensual decision-making process between the two. The eligibility stage further disqualified 25 documents, leaving 479 documents for subsequent analyses.

Most documents were disqualified because they were not related to organizational practices (e.g., computer vision, low vision (eye sight) and machine vision). Finally, 479 documents were left for subsequent analyses. The overall screening process is shown in Figure 1 below.

4.2. The Bibliometric Analysis

Bibliometric analysis is adopted to present descriptive statistics of the literature. The VOSviewer software version 1.6.18 is employed to construct a science map [39,40]. A science map is composed of nodes, each of which represents journals, authors, documents or keywords. A science map allows researchers to gain an overview of research trends through citations, co-citations and word occurrence analyses. In the present study, journal, document and author are the units of analysis. The citation analysis is adopted as an impact measure without the number of distinctive article downloads [41] since not all publishers provide the download number.

Research fronts are identified via the co-citation analysis approach since it delivers coherent and distinctive results and is more accurate than direct citation and bibliographic coupling [42,43]. As suggested by Zupic and Cater [44], the co-citation approach can also be used to assess the related features and to visualize the resulting structure of the organizational vision knowledge body via the frequency that a Scopus document is cited by another Scopus or non-Scopus document.

The co-citation analysis is also used to measure the relational features and the intellectual structure of a knowledge base [44] through the calculated occurrence with which a Scopus article has been cited by another article in or outside the Scopus database. Eventually, the “research front” and trendy topics in the knowledge domain are shown via keyword occurrence analysis [42,44].

4.3. The Grounded Theory Approach

To identify the forefront of knowledge in the domain of sustainability-related organizational vision, the Grounded Theory approach is adapted to develop a theoretical framework on the phenomenon of interest [45]. The approach starts with data collection. Based on the analysis in the prior bibliometric analysis, relevant authors and their articles were identified. These articles are then used as the input into the final stage.

Next, the coding process is performed, starting with open coding, axial coding and selective coding [45]. Open coding allows for multiple themes to emerge from the data. Each theme is labeled as an open code. Then, closely related or overlapping codes are combined into key concepts, called core codes, which have been aggregated over time in the literature. In the selective coding process, the focal and influential core codes and their causal relationships are determined.

As a result, the central phenomenon called the focal core code is related to sustainability performance. The rest of the core codes are influential core codes or influencing concepts. Informed by the literature, how focal core code and other core codes are related is identified, bringing about a framework. This resulting framework is indeed the forefront of knowledge in the domain of sustainability organizational vision.

Finally, future research directions are pointed out, followed by research and managerial implications.

5. Findings

To answer the RQs, the findings are presented and discussed in this section. The findings from the co-citation and citation analyses of the three units are presented, followed by the discussion of the findings from the co-occurrence analysis.

5.1. Citation and Co-Citation Analyses

To answer RQ #1, the analyses of citations and co-citations are performed on journals, authors and documents, as presented and discussed, respectively, below.

5.1.1. Journal Citation and Co-Citation Analyses

The journal citation and co-citation analyses (JCA) reveal the following findings. They are presented and discussed below (

Table 2. Top 10 journals with articles on organizational vision ranked by citations.

Rank Order	Source Title	Domain	SJR Quartile	No. of Documents	Citations
1	Leadership Quarterly	Business and management	Q1	16	1464
2	Journal of Applied Psychology	Psychology	Q1	2	559
3	Personnel Psychology	Business and management	Q1	2	305
4	Leadership and Organizational Development Journal	Business and management	Q1	7	264
5	Academy of Management Journal	Business and management	Q1	3	177
6	Journal of Eduational Administration	Social sciences	Q1	5	156
7	Academic Medicine	Medicine	Q1	2	140
8	MIS Quarterly	Business and management	Q1	1	128
9	Journal of Organizational Behavior	Business and management	Q1	2	120
10	Frontiers in Psychology	Psychology	Q1	5	114

Note: Black color highlights journals that are common across the citation and co-citation analyses.

).

Journals in which scholars who investigated organizational vision published their research were identified via citation analysis. The Scimago Journal Rank (SJR), which is used to examine journal quality, ranks all journals as Q1. Six out of ten are from the business and management domain, two from the psychology domain, one from the medicine domain and one from the social sciences domain. It can be drawn that organizational vision scholars have primarily published their research in the business and management domain. Notably, however, none of the top journals specializes in sustainability as determined from previous sustainability studies [20,46], suggesting the possibility that organizational vision scholars may not have focused their research efforts on sustainability vision.

Informed by the journal citation analysis, organizational vision scholars who look for quality journals to publish their research should consider Leadership Quarterly and the Journal of Applied Psychology because based on citations, they are ranked among the top two (

Table 3. Top 10 journals with articles on organizational vision ranked according to co-citations.

Rank Order	Source Title	Domain	SJR Quartile	Co-Citations
1	Leadership Quarterly	Business and management	Q1	734
2	Journal of Applied Psychology	Psychology	Q1	457
3	Academy of Management Journal	Business and management	Q1	301
4	Academy of Management Review	Business and management	Q1	240
5	Journal of Personality and Social Psychology	Psychology	Q1	157
6	Administrative Science Quarterly	Social sciences	Q1	139
7	Journal of Management	Business and management	Q1	131
8	Harvard Business Review	Business and management	Q1	130
9	Organization Science	Business and management	Q1	121
10	Journal of Organizational Behavior	Business and management	Q1	108

Note: Black color highlights journals that are common across the citation and co-citation analyses.

).

Next, co-citation analysis is used to identify recurrently co-cited journals publishing organizational vision research. The occurrence of document co-citation in these journals points out the necessary journals that organizational vision researchers should review. The co-citation analysis reveals that seven from the top ten co-cited journals reside in the business and management domain, two in the psychology domain and one in the social sciences domain. All ten are ranked as Q1, suggesting that the foundational knowledge of the organizational vision literature is drawn from journals with high quality. The analysis also reveals that Leadership Quarterly, the Journal of Applied Psychology and the Academy of Management Journal are necessary for organizational vision scholars to read, given that they are exceptionally co-cited 734, 457 and 301 times, respectively, by organizational vision scholars. It is also noted that these top co-cited journals do not specialize in sustainability as determined from previous sustainability studies [20,46], rendering support to my anticipation earlier that organizational vision scholars have not focused their research efforts on sustainability vision.

In concluding this section, ranked first in the rankings of journal citation and co-citation is the journal Leadership Quarterly, indicating its position as the most influential journal in the organizational vision literature. In addition, the Journal of Applied Psychology, the Academy of Management Journal and the Journal of Organizational Behavior are ranked in both rankings of journal citation and co-citation, indicating that they are influential in organizational vision research.

In terms of sustainability, it must be noted that all of the journals in both journal citation and co-citation analyses do not specialize in sustainability, indicating the need to look into the author and document analyses in order to determine if published research in these journals are about organizational vision in the sustainability context.

5.1.2. Author Citation and Co-Citation Analyses

In this section, key organizational vision scholars are identified through bibliometric analysis [47]. Ranked according to the number of relevant publications and citations, key scholars, clusters of thought and extents of influence are disclosed in this section.

The top ten most cited organizational vision scholars according to total Scopus citations (

Table 4. Top 10 authors of organizational vision ranked according to citations, 1981–October 2022.

Rank Order	Author	Citations	No. of Publications
1	Mumford, M.D.	405	5
2	Shamir, B.	353	3
3	van Knippenberg, D.	330	6
3	Berson, Y.	330	4
4	Kantabutra, S.	259	18
5	Stam, D.	247	5
6	Wisse, D.	238	3
7	Waldman, D.A.	153	3
8	Venus, M.	121	3
9	Avery, G.C.	88	3
10	McCormick, J.	56	3

Note: Black color highlights authors that are common across the citation and co-citation analyses.

) are Mumford, Shamir, van Knippenberg, Berson, Kantabutra, Stam, Wisse, Waldman, Venus, Avery and McCormick, respectively. Among them, the top four most productive scholars in this area are Kantabutra (1st), van Knippenberg (2nd), Mumford (3rd) and Stam (3rd) and Berson (4th).

To identify foundational scholars in the organizational vision literature, co-citation analysis is adopted. Co-citation analysis allows researchers to visualize the intellectual structure of the knowledge base featured by authors. It is considered as one co-citation when two authors are referred to in a single document. The occurrence of author co-citations indicates an extent to which an author influences knowledge domain directly and indirectly [48]. The top ten most influential authors in the organizational vision literature are shown in

Table 5. Top 10 authors of organizational vision literature ranked according to co-citations, 1981–October 2022.

Rank Order	Author	Co-Citations	Total Link Strength
1	Bass, B.M.	223	8172
2	Shamir, B.	213	9394
3	House, R.J.	193	8141
4	Avolio, B.J.	180	6969
5	Locke, E.A.	178	7855
6	van Knippenberg, D.	174	7085
7	Conger, J.A.	172	7273
8	Kantabutra, S.	159	5724
9	Mumford, M.D.	152	4532
10	Kirkpatrick, S.A.	110	4462
10	Nanus, B.	110	2441

Note: Black color highlights authors that are common across the citation and co-citation analyses.

.

Given the nature of co-citation analysis, an author from the analysis may have not contributed directly to the organizational vision knowledge base, but his/her contribution must be fundamental to building the body of knowledge on organizational vision.

The top five authors according to co-citations are Bass, Shamir, House, Avolio and Locke, all of whom are vision-based leadership scholars. Given that four authors are ranked according to both citation and co-citation rankings (Shamir, van Knippenberg, Kantabutra and Mumford), these four scholars have the highest impact within the organizational vision knowledge domain. Similar to the journal citation and co-citation analysis results, these authors are not well-identified in the sustainability sphere [49,50,51,52,53,54,55], except Kantabutra, who has continuously been identified by different scholars as a top scholar in the sustainability literature [20,46,56,57,58].

In terms of discovering the schools of thought in the organizational vision knowledge domain (Figure 2), the author co-citation map portrays the intellectual construction of the organizational vision knowledge body with four main clusters below, the answer to RQ #3.

Four distinct schools of thought on organizational vision emerge as follows: Vision Component (the red cluster), Vision Motivation (the green cluster), and Transformational Vision (the blue cluster) and Educational Vision (the yellow cluster). Each school of thought provides a different perspective on organizational vision. The top three scholars for each school are shown in

Table 6. Top three scholars according to school of thought, 1981–October 2022.

Rank Order by Co-Citations	Cluster No.
	1(27)	2(23)	3(12)	4(3)
1	Conger, J.	Shamir, B.	Bass, B.M.	Leithwood, K.
2	Kantabutra, S.	Locke, E.A.	House, R.J.	Hallinger, P.
3	Kirkpatrick, S.A.	van Knippenberg, D.	Avolio, B.J.	Murphy, J.
School of Thought	Vision Component	Vision Motivation	Transformational Vision	Educational Vision

below.

The first red cluster, led by Conger, Kantabutra and Kirkpatrick, is the largest with 27 scholars. Surprisingly, Conger is not found in our organizational vision dataset, but is identified as the most co-cited scholar in this cluster, demonstrating the benefit of co-citation analysis that allows a cited document outside Scopus to be part of the analysis. Looking more closely, Conger’s work includes communications, influence, executive leadership, organizational change, empowerment and the training and development of leaders. He has studied effective leadership through the lens of charismatic and transformational leadership, both of which have vision as a core element. Thus, it is not surprising that Conger is a foundational scholar in this school of thought, although his studies have not focused on organizational vision per se.

As the second most co-cited scholar in this cluster, Kantabutra has studied the organizational vision components of attributes and content. Initially, he specifically examined what characterized effective visions that lead to improving organizational performance [59,60,61]. In 2009, Kantabutra introduced the first interim theory of organizational vision to fill the gap in the vision-based leadership literature [34]. He has continued to research effective visions, but in a sustainability context, in which sustainability visions are critical to improving corporate sustainability performance [16,62,63].

As the third most co-cited scholar in this cluster, Kirkpatrick has produced knowledge in the areas of effective vision attributes and content imagery that leads to improving organizational performance. With Baum and Locke, she is among the first few scholars who identified effective vision components in startup firms [12].

The document co-citation analysis results, to be discussed in the following subsection, also lend support to the existence of the first cluster. The frequently co-cited documents from Conger [2,64], Kantabutra [34,59] and Kirkpatrick [12,65] are also all about vision-based leadership. In particular, the research works by Kantabutra and Kirkpatrick are primarily about vision components.

Considering the works of scholars in the cluster, the cluster is named the Vision Component school of thought. Given that Conger has not focused his research on organizational vision, Kantabutra becomes the top co-cited scholar in the Vision Component school of thought, while Kirkpatrick is the second. To answer RQ #5, only the articles by Kantabutra and Kirkpatrick are the basis for the further analysis in the Grounded Theory section.

As the second largest cluster with 23 scholars, the green cluster is led by Shamir, Locke and van Knippenberg. As the top co-cited scholar in this cluster, Shamir contributed in the area of vision content and attributes that inspire/motivate followers, leading to affective organizational commitment [66,67,68]. Globally recognized, Locke introduced the Goal-Setting Theory of Motivation in 1968. In terms of organizational vision, Locke, with Baum and Kirkpatrick, has identified effective vision attributes and content in startup firms [12]. Locke’s primary contribution to organizational vision research is when an organizational vision is considered as a big prime goal used to motivate followers.

Similarly, van Knippenberg has contributed to the organizational vision literature in the area of vision and motivation. In particular, his focus has been on how to nurture a shared organizational vision between leaders and followers, leading to improved organizational motivation. Considering the contributions of scholars in this cluster, the second cluster is named the Vision Motivation school of thought. To answer RA #5, only Locke’s articles on organizational vision components are used for further analysis in the next section.

The document co-citation analysis results, to be discussed in the next subsection, also support the argument for the second cluster’s existence above. The frequently co-cited documents by Shamir are primarily about motivation via vision-based leadership [69,70], while the frequently co-cited documents by Locke are primarily about vision-based leadership components [12,65] including vision, considered as a leadership tool to motivate followers. Finally, the frequently co-cited documents by van Knippenberg [71,72] are primarily concerned with vision-based leadership and its resulting outcomes, one of which is follower motivation.

Led by Bass, House and Avolio, the third largest cluster in blue contains 12 scholars. Bass, the most co-cited, and House, the second most co-cited in this cluster, are not found in the organizational vision dataset, endorsing the advantage of co-citation analysis discussed earlier. Looking more closely, Bass is one of the pioneers in Transformational Leadership theory [73]. Similarly, House introduced Charismatic Leadership theory [74]. Recognized globally, Bass and House’s theories of Transformational and Charismatic Leadership have vision as their core and are the foundational literature for organizational vision research. As the third most co-cited scholar in this cluster, Avolio, with Berson, Shamir, and Popper, has focused his research on leaders’ organizational vision strength, as part of the Transformational Leadership style.

Considering the work of scholars in this cluster, the third cluster is named the Transformational Vision school of thought. Given that Bass and House have not focused their research on organizational vision, Avolio becomes the most co-cited organizational vision scholar in the Transformational Vision school of thought. To answer RQ #5, only the articles by Avolio are the basis for further analysis in the next section.

To be discussed in the following subsection, the document co-citation analysis results also underline the argument for the existence of the third cluster above. The frequently co-cited documents by Bass are primarily about transformational leadership with vision as its core [73,75]. Similarly, the frequently co-cited documents by House are primarily about charismatic leadership [76,77], while the frequently co-cited documents by Avolio are primarily concerned with transformational leadership [78,79]. It must be noted here that both charismatic and transformational leadership concepts have vision as a core component.

As the smallest school of thought on organizational vision, the fourth cluster in yellow comprises three scholars: Leithwood, Hallinger and Murphy. Leithwood, as the first, and Hallinger, as the second scholar ranked according to co-citations in this cluster, are globally recognized scholars of educational leadership that have vision as a core component, particularly in the areas of effective leadership and school improvement. Although they are not found in the organizational vision dataset, they are identified as the top co-cited scholars in this cluster because they have contributed to the foundational literature for this cluster, an advantage of co-citation analysis, as discussed earlier.

Included in the organizational vision dataset, Murphy, as the third most co-cited scholar in this cluster, has specifically studied school vision. With Torre, Murphy identified essential dimensions of school vision [80]. Due to the contributions of scholars in this school, this cluster is named the Educational Vision school of thought. Since Leithwood and Hallinger have not focused their research on organizational vision per se, Murphy becomes the most co-cited scholar in the Educational Vision school of thought. To answer RQ #5, only the articles by Murphy are the basis for further analysis in the next section.

The document co-citation analysis results, to be discussed in the next subsection, lend support for the argument for the existence of the fourth cluster above. The frequently co-cited documents by both Leithwood and Hallinger are primarily concerned with leadership and change in a school setting [81,82,83,84], while the frequently co-cited documents by Murphy are primarily concerned with leadership and school improvement [85,86]. All frequently co-cited documents from the three scholars are concerned with educational leadership.

In terms of distance, the three schools of Vision Component, Vision Motivation and Transformational Vision are tightly co-located, which demonstrates the closely related knowledge among them. On the other hand, there is a large distance between the Educational Vision school of thought and the other three schools on the author co-citation map, indicating that the scholars in the Educational Vision school have only produced knowledge on school leadership and vision.

5.1.3. Document Citation and Co-Citation Analyses

Gaining understanding of the organizational locus of the top ten most highly cited organizational vision documents (

Table 7. Top 10 documents on organizational vision ranked in order based on citations, 1981-October 2022.

Rank Order	Document Title	Authors	Year of Publication	Source Title	Field Weighted Citation Impact	Document Percentile	Citations	School of Thought No.
1	Perceptions of leader charisma and effectiveness: The effects of vision content, delivery, and organizational performance	Awamleh, R., Gardner, W.L. [87]	1999	Leadership Quarterly	8.45	98	382	1,2
2	A longitudinal study of the relation of vision and vision communication to venture growth in entrepreneurial firms	Baum, J.R., Locke, E.A., Kirkpatrick, S.A. [12]	1998	Journal of Applied Psychology	2.11	86	374	1,2
3	The relationship between vision strength, leadership style, and context *	Berson, Y., Shamir, B., Avolio, B.J., Popper, M. [66]	2001	Leadership Quarterly	3.98	95	191	2,3
4	Leader Vision and the Development of Adaptive and Proactive Performance: A Longitudinal Study	Griffin, M.A., Parker, S.K., Mason, C.M. [88]	2010	Journal of Applied Psychology	3.66	94	185	2
5	Action training for charismatic leadership: Two evaluations of studies of a commercial training module on inspirational communication of a vision	Frese, M., Beimel, S., Schoenborn, S. [89]	2003	Personnel Psychology	1.53	81	175	2
6	The origins of vision: Effects of reflection, models, and analysis	Strange, J.M., Mumford, M.D. [90]	2005	Leadership Quarterly	5.96	97	153	3
6	The origins of vision. Charismatic versus ideological leadership	Strange, J.M., Mumford, M.D. [91]	2002	Leadership Quarterly	4.86	96	153	3
7	Visionary communication qualities as mediators of the relationship between narcissism and attributions of leader charisma	Galvin, B.M., Waldman, D.A., Balthazard, P. [92]	2010	Personnel Psychology	2.83	91	130	2
8	Aligning the IT human resource with business vision: The leadership initiative at 3M	Roepke, R., Agarwal, R., Ferratt, T.W. [93]	2000	MIS Quarterly	4.32	95	128
9	A (blurry) vision of the future: How leader rhetoric about ultimate goals influences performance	Carton, A.M., Murphy, C., Clark, J.R. [94]	2014	Academy of Management Journal	2.22	88	118
10	Continuing medical education: A new vision of the professional development of physicians	Bennett N.L., Davis D.A., Easterling W.E. Jr., Friedmann P., Green J.S., Koeppen B.M., Mazmanian P.E., Waxman H.S. [95]	2000	Academic Medicine	7.23	98	110

), the documents reveal that studies of organizational leadership dominate the list since vision is considered as the core of effective organizational leadership, which is the answer for RQ #2.

Additionally, the document citation analysis confirms the existence of the Vision Component, Vision Motivation and Transformational Vision schools of thought. Of the top ten cited documents, two are from the Vision Component school, six are from the Vision Motivation school and three are from the Transformational Vision school. No document from the Educational Vision school is represented on the list because it is a much smaller school of three members. Nine out of ten documents are published in the top ten most cited journals discussed earlier. All ten documents have a Scopus Field-Weighted Citation Impact Factor of more than one and are in the first quartile with six among the top fifth percentile in their respective area, suggesting the very high quality of these documents.

Next, documents were examined via co-citation analysis (

Table 8. Top 10 documents in the organizational vision literature ranked in order based on co-citations, 1981–October 2022.

Rank Order	Document Title	Authors	Year of Publication	Source Title	SJR Quartile at Publication or Nearest to Publication	Co-Citations	School of Thought No.
1	Leadership and performance beyond expectation	Bass, B.M. [1]	1985	Book	n/a	35	3
2	A Longitudinal Study of the Relation of Vision and Vision Communication to Venture Growth in Entrepreneurial Firms	Baum, J.R., Locke, E.A. and Kirkpatrick, S.A. [12]	1998	Journal of Applied Psychology	Q1(1999)	28	1,2
3	Direct and indirect effects of three core charismatic leadership components on performance and attitudes.	Kirkpatrick, S.A. and Locke, E.A. [65]	1996	Journal of Applied Psychology	Q1(1999)	26	1,2
4	Ads, Fads, and Consumer Culture: Advertising’s Impact on American Character and Society	Berger, A.A. [96]	2000	Book	n/a	22
4	The Motivational Effects of Charismatic Leadership: A Self-Concept Based Theory	Shamir, B., House, R.J. and Author, M.B. [69]	1993	Organization Science	Q1(1999)	22	2,3
5	Toward a Behavioral Theory of Charismatic Leadership in Organizational Settings	Conger, J.A. and Kanungo, R.N. [64]	1987	Academy of Management Review	Q1(1999)	18	1
6	Visionary leadership and strategic management	Westley, F. and Mintzberg, H. [5]	1989	Strategic Management Journal	Q1(1999)	16	1
7	Inspiring Others: The Language of Leadership	Conger, J.A. [2]	1991	Academy of Management Executive	n/a	11	1
8	Visionary Leadership Creating a Compelling Sense of Direction for Your Organization.	Nanus, B. [4]	1992	Book	n/a	10	1
9	A force for change	Kotter, J.P. [3]	1990	Book	n/a	8	1
9	Demystifying the Development of an Organizational Vision	Lipton, M. [97]	1996	MIT Sloan Management Review	Q2(2002)	8
9	Proposed model for investigating relationships between vision components and business unit performance	Kantabutra, S. and Avery, G.C. [59]	2002	Journal of Management and Organization	Q3	8	1
9	The relationship between vision strength, leadership style, and context.	Berson, Y., Shamir, B., Avolio, B.J. and Popper, M. [66]	2001	Leadership Quarterly	Q1	8	2,3
9	Perceptions of leader charisma and effectiveness: The effects of vision content, delivery, and organizational performance.	Awamleh, R. and Gardner, W.L. [87]	1999	Leadership Quarterly	Q1	8	1,2
10	Dimensions of transformational leadership: Conceptual and empirical extension.	Rafferty, A.E. and Griffin, M.G. [98]	2004	Leadership Quarterly	Q1	7	1,2
10	Structure and meaning of organizational vision.	Larwood, L, Falbe, C.M., Kringer, M.P., Miesing, P. [99]	1995	Academy of Management Journal	Q1(1999)	7	1
10	Six basics for general managers.	Pearson, A.E. [100]	1989	Harvard Business Review	Q1(1999)	7
10	Effects of Transformational Leadership Training on Attitudinal and Financial Outcomes: A Field Experiment	Barling, J., Weber, T. and Kelloway, E.K. [101]	1996	Journal of Applied Psychology	Q1(1999)	7
10	The Transformational Leader	Tichy, N.M. and Devanna, M.A. [102]	1986	Training and Development Journal	n/a	7	1
10	Toward a behavioral theory of vision in organizational settings	Kantabutra, S. [34]	2009	Leadership and Organizational Development Journal	Q2	7	1
10	The charismatic relationship: A dramaturgical perspective.	Gardner, W.L. and Avolio, B.J. [103]	1998	Academy of Management Review	Q1(1999)	7	2,3
10	The origins of vision: Charismatic versus ideological leadership	Strange, J.M. and Mumford, M.D. [91]	2002	Leadership Quarterly	Q1	7	3
10	A (blurry) vision of the future: How leader rhetoric about ultimate goals influences performance	Carton, A.M., Murphy, C. and Clark, J.R. [94]	2014	Academy of Management Journal	Q1	7

). By nature of the co-citation analysis, the resulting documents include documents from my organizational vision dataset from Scopus and other important documents beyond this dataset.

The document co-citation analysis reveals that, of the twenty-three top ten co-cited documents, fourteen are in Q1 journals, two are in Q2 journals, one is in a Q3 journal, and four are in books. Please note that in a case where no quartile information at the publication date is available, the nearest quartile information is used as indicated in Table 7. Two journal documents have no quartile information available. Nine of them are published in the three most influential journals: Leadership Quarterly, the Journal of Applied Psychology, and the Academy of Management Journal. The co-citation analysis allows for four books outside the organizational vision dataset to be identified, three of which are written by well-known vision-based leadership scholars: Bass, Nanus and Kotter. Nanus and Kotter belong to the Vision Component school, while Bass belongs to the Transformational Vision school.

Based upon the analyses of document citation and co-citation, the five most influential documents are shown in

Table 9. The most influential organizational vision documents based on citations and co-citations, 1981–October 2022.

No.	Most Influential Organizational Vision Documents	Authors	Year	Source Title
1	Perceptions of leader charisma and effectiveness: The effects of vision content, delivery, and organizational performance	Awamleh, R., Gardner, W.L. [87]	1999	Leadership Quarterly
2	A longitudinal study of the relation of vision and vision communication to venture growth in entrepreneurial firms	Baum, J.R., Locke, E.A., Kirkpatrick, S.A. [12]	1998	Journal of Applied Psychology
3	The relationship between vision strength, leadership style, and context *	Berson, Y., Shamir, B., Avolio, B.J., Popper, M. [66]	2001	Leadership Quarterly
4	The origins of vision. Charismatic versus ideological leadership	Strange, J.M., Mumford, M.D. [91]	2002	Leadership Quarterly
5	A (blurry) vision of the future: How leader rhetoric about ultimate goals influences performance	Carton, A.M., Murphy, C., Clark, J.R. [94]	2014	Academy of Management Journal

below. These documents are specific to organizational vision research, as opposed to general vision-based leadership research. All documents focus on organizational vision characteristics.

However, none of these influential documents on organizational vision is specific to the sustainability context. They are simply discussing organizational vision in relation to general organizational performance (e.g., productivity, business performance). Along with the analyses of author citations, journal citations and co-citations, the findings from the document analyses suggest a paucity of organizational vision research in the sustainability context.

To find an answer to RQ #4, a deeper analysis of word co-occurrence is conducted to explore the extent to which the body of knowledge on organizational vision contains content relevant to sustainability in the next section.

5.1.4. Co-Occurrence Analysis

Co-occurrence analysis is used to provide the answer to RQ #4. In addition to the citation analysis, it adds topical specialization to the organizational vision scholarship [44]. With a minimum threshold of five occurrences of a keyword, the search for co-occurrence was set to “Author keywords” because the authors are the best indicator of whether their reports are related to sustainability.

Only 10 out of 1247 keywords meet the threshold condition (

Table 10. Top 10 keywords in organizational vision literature ranked in order based on co-occurrence, 1981–October 2022.

Rank Order by Occurrences	Keyword	Occurrences	Total Link Strength
1	Leadership	75	53
2	Vision	63	48
3	Visionary leadership	19	17
4	Shared vision	12	5
5	Motivation	7	15
5	Vision communication	7	9
5	Organizational culture	7	4
6	Australia	5	6
6	Strategy	5	4
6	Sustainability	5	1

). The co-word map (Figure 2) portrays the relative emphasis on a range of topics related to organizational vision. A connecting line represents a link strength while the node thickness indicates that keywords nodes are related.

The ten most commonly co-occurring keywords from the analysis are “leadership” (75 cases), “vision” (63 cases), “visionary leadership” (19 cases), “shared vision” (12 cases), “motivation” (7 cases), “vision communication” (7 cases), “organizational culture” (7 cases), Australia (5 cases), strategy (5 cases) and sustainability (5 cases), revealing that these keywords are topics of relevance among organizational vision scholars. It is noted “sustainability” has emerged from the organizational vision literature, indicating that an organizational vision knowledge base relevant to sustainability exists.

Additionally, the science map for document co-occurrence (Figure 3) depicts four clusters of focal topics as determined by the sizes of major nodes. “Leadership” in the red cluster is the first topical focus, “vision” in the blue cluster as the second, “visionary leadership” in the green cluster as the third and “shared vision” in the yellow cluster as the fourth. It is not surprising that organizational vision scholars identify leadership, vision, visionary leadership, vision communication, shared vision and organizational culture as their keywords since these elements are widely regarded as part of effective leadership [34]. Additionally, the keyword strategy is expected since leadership and strategy are closely related in the literature [5,104,105,106,107].

Interestingly, the keyword “sustainability” belongs to the red cluster of Leadership possibly because sustainability is increasingly seen as part of effective leadership in the present changing time [13,15,46]. Sometimes, this paradigm of sustainability-oriented leadership is discussed as sustainable leadership [13] or sustainability leadership [106]. However, sustainability has only five occurrences, indicating that, to a significant extent, organizational vision scholars have not taken into account sustainability in their vision research yet. This conclusion is endorsed by the earlier analyses of journal, author and document citations and co-citations.

Given that the research front is usually dynamic, scholars typically respond to changes in the environment very quickly, especially after newly discovered knowledge is being introduced. The science map, according to Zupic and Cater [44] and Boyack and Klavans [42], can help to portray the “research front” in the organizational vision knowledge base. Thus, a science map is drawn to reveal the trendiest topics and research fronts (Figure 4), revealing that most keywords are comparatively old, as the average publication year for these keywords is before 2012. They include leadership, vision, motivation and Australia. More recent work about visionary leadership, strategy and vision communication is done between late 2012 and mid-2015, reflecting research on organizational vision published during this period, not the least, by Kantabutra, e.g., [108,109,110,111,112]. The most recent work is beyond mid-2015, when the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals were introduced [113], about organizational culture, shared vision and sustainability because shared vision is widely regarded as fundamental to a coherent organizational culture that is required before a business organization can become sustainable [23]. Much work on organizational vision in the sustainability context has been introduced during this later period, e.g., [16,62,63], consistent with a recent analysis of the literature on sustainability management [52] that indicates a gradual expansion throughout the 1980s and 1990s followed by a rapid expansion after 2010.

To conclude the study, it has become clear from the analyses of journal, author, document citations and keyword co-occurrence that scholars who studied organizational vision have not, to a reasonable extent, studied organizational vision in the sustainability context. Most of the organizational vision research focuses on general organizational performance rather than sustainability performance. Scholars are mostly concerned with organizational vision that focuses on organizational members and customers, only two groups from a whole range of stakeholders. Consequently, the next section introduces the cutting-edge knowledge on organizational vision in the sustainability context. The extent to which organizational vision scholars address organizational vision in the sustainability context is also discussed.

6. Cutting-Edge Knowledge on Sustainability Organizational Vision

To answer RQ #5, the grounded theory process began by identifying relevant documents for analysis. As discussed earlier, only the documents from the scholars in

Table 11. Influential scholars who studied organizational vision.

No.	Scholar	School of Thought	No. of Documents	Authors
1	Kantabutra, S.	Vision Component	18	Kantabutra and Avery, 2002 [59]; Kantabutra, 2005 [114]; Kantabutra and Avery, 2007 [60]; Kantabutra, 2008abc [115,116,117]; Kantabutra, 2009 [34]; Kantabutra and Avery, 2009 [118]; Kantabutra and Vimolratana, 2009 [119]; Kantabutra, 2010 [120]; Kantabutra and Vimolratana, 2010 [121]; Kantabutra, 2012ab [108,109]; Kantabutra and Saratun, 2011 [122]; Kantabutra and Rungruang, 2013 [110]; Somboonpakorn and Kantabutra, 2014 [112]; Kantabutra, 2014 [111]; Vongariyajit and Kantabutra, 2021 [63]
2	Kirkpatrick, S.A.	Vision Component	2	Baum, Locke and Kirkpatrick, 1998 [12]; Kirkpatrick, Wofford and Baum, 2002 [123]
3	Locke, E.A.	Vision Motivation	1	Baum, Locke and Kirkpatrick, 1998 [12]; Kirkpatrick, Wofford and Baum, 2002 [123]
4	Avolio, B.J.	Transformational Vision	1	Berson, Shamir, Avolio and Popper, 2001 [66]
5	Murphy, J.	Education Vision	1	Murphy and Torre, 2015 [80]

are analyzed in this section.

Once all documents or data are collected, the Grounded theory’s coding process [124] is used, which is shown in Figure 5, to analyze and combine the data.

Initially, the open coding method was utilized to identify themes within the collected papers or data. This was accomplished by conducting a line-by-line and paragraph-by-paragraph analysis of the materials [124]. Subsequently, the researcher used these codes to build concepts, which is termed “open code.” Through using open coding, there are numerous open codes [124]. The researcher then recombined strongly related and overlapping open codes into aggregated key concepts or core codes as the following phase in the axial coding procedure. The researcher then selected the focal core code from the core codes. This procedure is known as selective coding [124].

With 18 documents, Kantabutra has dominated the body of knowledge on organizational vision. Endorsing the dominating status in the literature, he is also identified as a leading sustainability scholar in broader sustainability literature reviews, e.g., [20,46,56,57,58].

The researcher continued reading all 22 documents, adopting the coding process to identify emerging themes and relationships among them. From the coding process, four themes concerning vision attributes, vision content, vision communication and sustainability performance emerged. The attributes of effective vision statements are brevity, clarity, future orientation, stability, challenges, abstractness and an ability to inspire, which have been widely endorsed by scholars as effective vision attributes, e.g., [125,126,127,128,129,130,131,132,133,134,135]. In terms of vision content, there are several content imageries supporting this theme, including those related to motive, venture growth, sales, leadership and stakeholder satisfaction imageries. Vision communication includes written, spoken and technology mediated communication and role modelling. The performance theme includes specific performance outputs such as customer, staff and stakeholder satisfaction, venture growth, market share, all of which characterize sustainability performance, e.g., [136]. After the selective coding process, sustainability performance was determined as the focal core code, and the rest were influential ones.

In determining relationships among them, the literature first suggests vision has two components of attributes and content, e.g., [12,34,66,123]. The commonly agreed vision attributes are brevity, clarity, future orientation, stability, challenges, abstractness and desirability or an ability to inspire. Together with vision content, these attributes lead to improving sustainability performance as, among others, measured using venture growth and customer and staff satisfaction, e.g., [12,60,115]. Together with vision attributes, vision content can also lead to improving sustainability performance. The right content can contain such imagery about venture growth, customer and staff satisfaction and stakeholder satisfaction. Kirkpatrick et al. [123] suggest that achievement motive imagery, power motive imagery and affiliation motive imagery are associated with improved organizational performance. To determine vision strength, as Avolio and his colleagues suggested, vision content should be optimistic, highlight intrinsic needs that can be met, express confidence, relate to the organizational core values and emphasize positive future challenges and opportunities [66].

Looking closely into the 22 documents, most documents address the relationship between organizational performance and vision. Although all suggest a long-term perspective, only one document by Vongariyajit and Kantabutra [63] provides a discussion specifically from a sustainability perspective. It is reported that visions characterized by brevity, clarity, future orientation, stability, challenges, abstractness and desirability or an ability to inspire and containing imagery about improving stakeholder satisfaction lead to improved sustainability performance. All vision attributes and content imagery must be presented in a vision to create an impact on sustainability performance. Kantabutra [16], as reported in Vongariyajit and Kantabutra [63], has explained how the seven attributes and content interact to create such an impact. A brief and clear vision makes it easy to broadly convey the content of stakeholder satisfaction. A brief and clear vision that is characterized by desirability, abstractness and challenge can cause organizational members to share the vision easily. Moreover, when such a vision is future-oriented, it informs organizational members about the future direction of the organization as it keeps satisfying stakeholders. Finally, when such a vision is stable, it does not shift easily according to short-term changes as the organization weathers fluctuations, satisfying organizational members and stakeholders, leading to improving sustainability organizational performance.

The relationships among the focal and influential core codes are expressed in Figure 6 below.

A vision prototype according to the model is presented and discussed below:

“To be a world’s leading institution of higher learning for all.”

This vision statement contains only 11 words and, thus, is brief. At the same time, it is clear and abstract since it points directly at one prime goal that can be understood in five minutes. The vision statement is desirable and challenging for all stakeholders since to achieve and maintain a global leadership position is not easy, but possible. It is also future-oriented and stable since it indicates a long-term perspective of the organization that is not easily affected by market or technology change.

In terms of content, this vision statement contains imagery about stakeholders since it wants to serve all. It also indicates a leadership position, suggesting both performance and motive imageries of achievement, power and affiliation. Both vision attributes and content imageries theoretically facilitate the vision communication process to bring about long-term, sustainability organizational performance of the institution.

7. Overall Landscape of Organizational Vision Knowledge Base in the Sustainability Context

To answer RQ #4, the paper is concluded with a portrayal of the overall landscape of the organizational vision knowledge base. Based upon the prior journal, document, author and occurrence analyses, it can be concluded that the organizational vision knowledge base does not consider, to a significant extent, the sustainability aspect given the following support.

Starting from the journal citation and co-citation analyses, none of the journals publishing organizational vision research are any of those frequently identified as a top journal in the sustainability management field (e.g., the Journal of Cleaner Production and Sustainability) [52]. As a matter of fact, they are the mainstream business and management journals.

When it comes to the author analysis, the lists of top cited and co-cited authors are dominated by vision-based leadership scholars, including some globally recognized charismatic and transformational leadership scholars (e.g., Shamir, Bass and Conger). None are well-recognized in the sustainable development field except Kantabutra and Avery, who are considered as leading sustainable leadership scholars in previous systematic reviews, e.g., [20,46]. Though Hallinger’s meta-analysis [137] of the interdisciplinary field of sustainability management identified Joseph Sarkis, Stefan Seuring, Stefan Schaltegger, Qingyun Zhu, Kannan Govindan, Michael Porter and John Elkington as the most influential scholars in the multidisciplinary sustainability management literature, none of them appears on the list of top cited and co-cited scholars in the present organizational vision study, confirming that organizational vision scholars have not significantly engaged in sustainability research.

The conclusion here is endorsed once again by the resulting four schools of thought on organizational vision. Among the top scholars in each school of thought, only Kantabutra is recognized in the sustainable development field in previous reviews [20,46,56,57,58]. The rest is dominated by vision-based leadership scholars.

Considering the document analysis, all documents from the list of top cited and co-cited documents are dominated by vision-based leadership, which does not address the two sustainability dimensions of society and environment. It can be deduced that these organizational vision documents are all about the business performance of the firm (e.g., employee motivation, customer satisfaction and productivity) as opposed to sustainability performance, endorsing the view discussed earlier that organizational vision scholars have not significantly engaged in sustainability research.

Finally, the keyword occurrence analysis also confirms the conclusion above that organizational vision scholars have not engaged in sustainability research to a significant extent. However, on the bright side, the keyword occurrence analysis suggests that organizational vision scholars have begun to study organizational vision from a sustainability perspective with one keyword occurrence of sustainability.

Based upon all analyses above, it can be concluded that sustainability-related organizational vision, or the organizational vision leading to improving corporate sustainability prospects, is indeed an overlooked aspect in organizational vision research. Thus, future research directions for organizational vision are pointed out in the next section.

8. Future Research Directions

Certainly, future research can quantitatively examine the relationships between the constructs in the sustainability vision model in different organizational and industrial settings. One can examine if the seven vision attributes lead to improved organizational performance in sustainability via vision communication. In addition, the predictive relationship between the suggested vision content imageries and organizational performance in sustainability can also be examined.

Future research can also qualitatively explore how the seven vision attributes and suggested vision content help to improve overall organizational sustainability performance, the results of which can help to enhance the interim theory of sustainability vision [16] further. In particular, since organizational vision is defined at the cultural level of beliefs and values [138], future research may consider adopting the mind–sponge framework [139], which assumes that the human mind is analogized to a sponge squeezing out unsuitable values and absorbing new ones compatible with its core value, to explore how an organizational vision and its associated values can be learned and unlearned in the sustainability context by organizational members via a feedback loop.

Once the two sustainability vision components are confirmed empirically, and their dynamic relationships are understood, theory-building scholars can continue to refine the interim theory of sustainable leadership [15] and the interim theory of sustainability organizational culture [140]. In addition, since little is known about the organizational resilience phenomenon, e.g., [141,142], and the sustainability vision is part of the organizational resilience concept [143], researchers can continue their theory-building efforts in the domain of organizational resilience in both mature and entrepreneurial organizations.

Given the continuing efforts in building a full-blown theory of sustainable supply chain management, e.g., [144,145], the present study on sustainability vision helps to inform sustainable supply chain theorists in their efforts to build such a theory, given that sustainable supply chain management requires a shared supply chain vision [20].

Finally, since organizational vison leads to improved corporate brand [9], future research may explore/examine the relationship between sustainability-related organizational vision and brand equity, the findings of which will help to refine the theory of corporate sustainability.

9. Practical Implications

Clearly, the sustainability vision model has offered some critical implications for practicing corporate leaders and managers who wish to enhance their own prospect of corporate sustainability. First, they should ensure that they have a vision statement that is concise, clear, abstract, challenging, future oriented, desirable and stable. The vision content should contain imagery about stakeholders since it wants to serve all. It should also contain both performance and motive imageries of achievement, power and affiliation. With such a vision statement, corporate leaders and managers will be able to communicate their vision more effectively to develop and nurture a shared sustainability vision in their organization.

In terms of communication channels, they can communicate their vision via verbal communication, role modeling, shared events and organizational hierarchy. They may consult Daft [140] for more details about communication channels. Finally, to measure the effectiveness of their vision communication, corporate leaders and managers should identify and monitor sustainability performance indicators that include specific sustainability performance outputs such as customer, staff and stakeholder satisfaction; venture growth and market share.

10. Conclusions

The present study has achieved its main objective to discover the cutting-edge knowledge on sustainability organizational vision. To derive the cutting-edge knowledge on sustainability-related organizational vision, the study was guided by five main research questions.

To answer the first three RQs, the journals, authors and documents that have been creating a high impact in the organizational vision literature were identified. The most influential journals for organizational vision research are Leadership Quarterly, the Journal of Applied Psychology, and the Academy of Management Journal, while the most influential authors on organizational vision are Shamir, van Knippenberg, Kantabutra and Mumford.

The most influential documents on organizational vision were also identified. Based on keyword co-occurrence analysis, “sustainability” emerged from the organizational vision literature, indicating that an organizational vision knowledge base relevant to sustainability exists. However, “sustainability” had only five occurrences. It can be concluded from these analyses that organizational vision scholars have not, to a significant extent, engaged in organizational vision research in the sustainability context, to answer RQ #4. In other words, most of the organizational vision literature focuses on organizational vision that brings about economic performance alone.

The present study also revealed the intellectual structure of the organizational vision knowledge base, portraying four schools of thought on organizational vision: Vision Component, Vision Motivation, Transformational Vision and Educational Vision. Top scholars for each school were also identified.

Finally, the cutting-edge knowledge on the relationships between organizational vision and sustainability organizational performance, or the sustainability organizational vision framework, was derived, providing the answer to RQ #5. The framework comprises the seven attributes of effective sustainability vision: brevity, clarity, future orientation, stability, challenges, abstractness and an ability to inspire. In terms of vision content, sustainability vision contains several content imageries supporting this theme, including those related to motive, venture growth, sales, leadership and stakeholder satisfaction. These vision components are linked to sustainability performance via vision communication.

To conclude the study, future research directions, including theoretical implications, and managerial implications for practicing corporate managers and leaders were also provided.