Table 6.

Knowledge gaps in current DL literature and future agenda.

Gaps/Limitations in Current DL Research	Future Research Direction	Potential Research Questions (PRQ)
Employees’ attitudes, namely, job satisfaction and turnover intention are mostly studied. Multi-level triggers and outcomes analysis is missing current literature.	Future studies should investigate the impact of different negative leadership styles, on employees’ work outcomes. Employees’ behaviors such as voice, creativity, and knowledge sharing behavior should be investigated. The triggers and consequences of DL in other sectors, cultures, and contexts (e.g., hospitality, tourism, and airline industries) should be studied. Moreover, the multi-level (i.e. micro, meso, macro) antecedents and outcomes of DL should be examined.	PRQ1a) How negative leadership will impact employees' work outcomes? PRQ1b) What is the impact of DL on employee behavior? PRQ1c) How despotic leadership will impact different sectors of hospitality? PRQ1d) In what ways does multi-level modeling enhance our understanding of despotic leadership?
The DL phenomenon is mainly published in the journals of business management sciences, it might be a possibility to flourishing research in other domains.	In future research, the phenomenon of DL should also be examined in other disciplines as well as multidisciplinary research is required.	PRQ2) How does despotic leadership development conjointly happen in various disciplines-fields (e.g., political sciences, sociology, the public sector, and the education sector)?
More cross-sectional research is available on this topic, however, a lack of longitudinal studies was found	Future studies should design longitudinal studies to see any variations in the triggers and/or outcomes of DL over time.	PRQ3) How do longitudinal research designs (vs. cross-sectional) can contribute to literature?
Demographic variables and other internal/eternal contingencies are less studied as moderators in current DL research	“Future research should focus on replicating this study across different cultural contexts”	PRQ4) What will be the impact of DL on job performance in individualistic cultures?
Data was collected from one country which might constrain the generalizability of the results.	More research is needed to conduct cross-country comparisons to investigate any cultural and/or contextual variations in the triggers and/or outcomes of DL.	PRQ5) Are there any contextual (or cultural) similarities (or differences) of outcomes of DL in other countries? PRQ6) Are there any similarities (or differences) in the outcomes of DL in other (public/private) organizations of Pakistan?
Limited research is available on the impact of DL on the ethical climate and justice climate of the organization.	Future studies should utilize multi-methods and collect data from multiple sources in DL research.	PRQ7) What will be the impact of DL on the ethical climate and justice climate of the organization?
All the respondents were male. All information was collected through self-reports.	Future studies need to keep in mind both genders Future research should conduct statistical methods or other sources to collect information	PRQ8) What will be the differences/similarities in the outcomes of DL from gathering the data from both genders? PRQ9) What other methods can complement the existing information of DL?