Contemporary public leadership in China: A research review and consideration

China garners great international attention due to its rapid economic development, unprecedented nationwide political reform, and significant social progress over the last 25 years. Contemporary public leadership in China is arguably a major force for the myriad of recent economic, political, and social transformations in the country. This article reviews the academic literature on that leadership, providing an overview of interest to scholars, teachers, and practitioners whose work deals with cross-cultural studies of leadership development. The review focuses primarily on materials published between January 1999 and June 2004 that explicitly address public leadership in China. The review identifies six areas of research to date: (1) leadership transition, (2) democratization, (3) prominent political figures, (4) local leadership, (5) cultural and historical traditions, and (6) other identified forms of public leadership (military versus Party leadership, women as public leaders, religion and public leadership, and student leadership). The article concludes with discussions of characteristics of the literature and directions for future theoretical and empirical work.