We would like to thank all participants for voluntarily donating their time to our study when they were under quarantine, and the two anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments on the early draft of this paper. We also would like to thank our family members for their supports in a difficult time conducting the study under lockdown.

Police are required to operate in complex social, political, and organizational environments. Nowadays, challenging times highlight the role that police leaders play in ensuring that the organization is effective in dealing with such environments. The purpose of this paper is to expand the systematic review of literature of Pearson-Goff and Herrington (2014, ‘Police Leadership: A Systematic Review of the Literature.’ Policing: A Journal of Policy and Practice 8(1): 14–26) by: (1) including studies after the date considered by the authors; (2) following the PRISMA-P approach to systematic reviews; and (3) include European studies. Based on 7,041 records, which ended up in 101 eligible empirical pieces, evidence supports previous findings about what are the characteristics of police leaders as well as the actions expected by them. This comprehensive systematic review also identifies additional characteristics and actions that are important nowadays in police leadership. Overall, the current study encourages future studies on the thematic, and contributes to practitioners aiming to develop continuous improvement strategies inside the police.

Purpose There are no management decisions deprived of ethical or political consequences. Political corporate social responsibility (CSR) has been highlighting this assertion but research at the microlevel on this topic is scarce. This study aims to contribute to the microlevel research by proposing a behavioral framework where leaders’ political skills are determinants of engagement in strategic CSR and perceived CSR leverages their ascribed legitimacy to perform a political role outside the boundaries of the organizations. Design/methodology/approach Building upon political CSR and critical realism theories, this study offers a general review on key political CSR microlevel concepts and examines multiple dimensions of CSR to explain the indirect effect between boards' political skills and political legitimacy. Findings This research suggests that high politically skilled leaders are associated to more CSR adoption which fosters higher legitimacy to act as political influencers. Among these, CSR activities directed toward community members and employees are seemingly the most successful from a political standpoint. Originality/value This study proposes a contemporary form of political influence to business leaders that, in contrast with other strategies such as lobbying or financing political campaigns, does not end up damaging corporate image and reputation. Also, this study proposes that not all CSR activities leverage corporate political legitimacy per se, therefore they do need to be differentiated. This study then offers a comprehensive future research agenda, including detailed suggestions for research designs and measurements.