Harvard Business Literature Review Example: Servant Leadership and Employee Outcomes
Written by Elena BrooksLast updated: September 9, 20266 min read
This annotated Harvard business literature review uses servant leadership and employee outcomes to demonstrate how to connect a construct, empirical evidence, competing explanations, and a research question. It is a teaching example, not a systematic review or a recommendation to adopt a management intervention. Use it with the Harvard literature review guide.
The example follows Cite Them Right author–date conventions for the journal articles below. Harvard has institutional variants: follow the edition and local guidance required for your assignment. Source identity and the specific claims used here were checked against the linked publisher or university records; this does not amount to a full-text quality appraisal of the entire literature.
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Construct: Define servant leadership before comparing outcomes. Do not assume that a new label represents a distinct mechanism.
Evidence type: Separate conceptual synthesis, primary empirical research, systematic review, and meta-analysis.
Inference: Distinguish an association, a proposed mediator, incremental prediction, and an intervention effect.
Context: Specify the industry, organisational level, population, outcome, and observation period.
Gap: Propose a searchable question rather than asserting that no research exists.
Annotated stronger draft
Construct and scope. Servant leadership offers a way to examine how leaders' orientation towards followers relates to organisational outcomes, but a review must specify what is being measured. Van Dierendonck (2011) provides a conceptual synthesis covering leadership characteristics, measurement, and possible mediating processes. This is a basis for defining the construct, not a pooled estimate of a training programme's effectiveness. Eva et al. (2019) review 285 articles from 1998–2018 and examine conceptual clarity and measurement. Together, these sources make the choice of definition and instrument part of the review's argument rather than a preliminary formality.
Empirical pathway and comparison. Liden et al. (2014) examine a model linking servant leadership, serving culture, and individual and unit outcomes. A review can use this study to discuss a proposed organisational pathway, while checking its design before making causal claims. Hoch et al. (2018) compare ethical, authentic, and servant leadership with transformational leadership through meta-analyses. Their abstract presents servant leadership as a promising distinct approach; it does not support reducing the conclusion to a blanket claim of only a small benefit. The useful synthesis question is which outcomes and comparisons support incremental prediction, under which study conditions. Neither conceptual distinctiveness nor incremental prediction alone establishes that an intervention will work in a new workplace.
Boundary and candidate question. For a review focused on hybrid work, a candidate question is whether servant-leadership measures are associated with engagement or retention in remote and co-located knowledge-work teams. This is a proposed scope, not an established absence of research. A current search should record the work setting, instrument, comparator, outcome, time horizon, and design of each eligible study. The resulting evidence can then show whether settings differ, whether measurement explains apparent disagreement, and what remains uncertain.
Why this draft is stronger
Weak move | Stronger move |
|---|---|
“Servant leadership always improves performance.” | Specify the outcome and design before stating what the evidence supports. |
Treat a conceptual review as an intervention trial. | Use conceptual work for definitions and empirical work for observed relationships. |
Invent a field-wide effect size. | Extract a named estimate from its original table, with its outcome and uncertainty. |
“No studies examine hybrid teams.” | Present a candidate question and test it through an up-to-date search. |
Use a citation quota to make prose appear academic. | Choose narrative or parenthetical citations according to the sentence's purpose. |
Harvard citation audit
Under the Cite Them Right convention used here, a one-author work uses that surname, two-author works use both surnames joined by and, three-author works list all three surnames, and works with four or more authors use the first surname followed by et al. from the first citation. Et al. is not italicised. Do not apply a first-citation/full-list rule from a different style.
One author: Van Dierendonck (2011) or (Van Dierendonck, 2011).
Four authors: Hoch et al. (2018) and Liden et al. (2014).
Five authors: Eva et al. (2019).
Multiple sources: (Eva et al., 2019; Van Dierendonck, 2011).
For a quotation or a passage-specific paraphrase, provide the actual page locator. Do not insert an example page number unless it identifies the passage used.
There is no narrative-citation percentage requirement in this guide. A reference list includes the works actually cited; a bibliography may have a different scope under your assignment instructions. The examples below list all authors in each full reference.
Reference list
Eva, N., Robin, M., Sendjaya, S., van Dierendonck, D. and Liden, R.C. (2019) 'Servant leadership: A systematic review and call for future research', The Leadership Quarterly, 30(1), pp. 111–132. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.leaqua.2018.07.004 (Accessed: 8 September 2026).
Hoch, J.E., Bommer, W.H., Dulebohn, J.H. and Wu, D. (2018) 'Do ethical, authentic, and servant leadership explain variance above and beyond transformational leadership? A meta-analysis', Journal of Management, 44(2), pp. 501–529. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1177/0149206316665461 (Accessed: 8 September 2026).
Liden, R.C., Wayne, S.J., Liao, C. and Meuser, J.D. (2014) 'Servant leadership and serving culture: Influence on individual and unit performance', Academy of Management Journal, 57(5), pp. 1434–1452. Available at: https://doi.org/10.5465/amj.2013.0034 (Accessed: 8 September 2026).
Van Dierendonck, D. (2011) 'Servant leadership: A review and synthesis', Journal of Management, 37(4), pp. 1228–1261. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1177/0149206310380462 (Accessed: 8 September 2026).
For quantitative extraction from Hoch et al., consult the publisher's correction notice and corrected tables. Bibliographic details for Van Dierendonck are also available in the author's university publication record.
Revision checklist
Match every in-text citation to a full reference.
Check author names, title, journal, year, and DOI together; a resolving DOI must identify the right paper.
Record the source's design and the location of each result you report.
Remove numerical claims whose outcome, denominator, uncertainty, or source cannot be established.
Use the same Harvard variant throughout the draft and reference list.
Check the candidate gap against recent studies and explain your search limits.
Frequently asked questions
Should I report one pooled effect size for servant leadership?
Only if your source or your own justified synthesis provides that estimate for a defined outcome and comparison. Incremental explained variance and a standardised mean difference are different statistics; do not treat one as the other.
Must I use Harvard for a business review?
Use the style required by your course, department, or journal. This page demonstrates one Harvard convention; it does not establish a requirement for all business programmes.
Can I reuse the sample?
Use the reasoning pattern and build your own argument from sources you have read. This short selection is not a complete search of servant-leadership research.
Continue your review
Check the Open University Cite Them Right guide, browse the annotated example hub, or bring your research question and sources to Acade to organise a comparison matrix and revise your draft.
About the author
Elena Brooks
Academic Research Content Editor at Acade
Elena Brooks is an Academic Research Content Editor at Acade. She creates practical, evidence-informed content about literature research, research design, academic writing, and the responsible use of AI in scholarly work. She works with Acade’s product team to evaluate research workflows, verify product capabilities, and translate complex academic processes into clear guidance for students and researchers.