The Evolving Landscape of Digital Leadership in the Built Environment: A Bibliometric Analysis

Purpose Digital leadership is increasingly recognised as important for navigating digital transformation in the built environment, yet the knowledge base remains fragmented and conceptually dispersed. This study aims to examine the evolution, intellectual structure and emerging themes of digital leadership research in the built environment and identify directions for future research. Design/methodology/approach A bibliometric analysis was conducted on 154 peer-reviewed publications indexed in Scopus and IEEE Xplore and published between 2016 and 2026. VOSviewer was used to analyse publication trends, authorship, geographical distribution, sources and keyword co-occurrence to identify the intellectual and thematic structure of the field. Findings The findings indicate sustained growth in digital leadership research, particularly since 2022, although scholarly activity remains concentrated among a limited number of authors, countries and institutions. Five interconnected themes emerged: digital leadership and innovation; digital transformation and sustainability; leadership approaches and technological integration; digitalisation in construction; and organisational and information management. The thematic evolution indicates a shift from foundational discussions towards competency, implementation and performance-oriented research. Originality/value The study consolidates the fragmented literature and provides a focused map of the evolving intellectual and thematic landscape of digital leadership in the built environment. It further identifies conceptual, contextual and empirical gaps and proposes directions for developing more context-sensitive digital leadership research and frameworks.