Mapping the envisioning landscape: A literature analysis of vision at the organizational level

Crafting and conveying a viable and compelling vision is considered as a sine qua non condition in the exercise of outstanding leadership. Envisioning is a complex process used in the literature to explain organisational performance at different levels of analysis. However, a literature review that accounts for all the different perspectives in which the concept is employed is still missing. The absence of a comprehensive review reduces scholars’ possibility to grasp how extensively the concept is present in the literature and which areas are most promising – and urgent – for future development. In this study we adopt a bibliometric technique to synthesize the contributions provided in the last forty years that constitute the organizational envisioning field of study. We applied co-word analysis on titles and abstracts to map the intellectual structure in the most objective manner. After providing an in-depth description of the four thematic clusters found, limitations and future lines of research are highlighted.