approaches, the narrow focus of most researchers, and the absence of
broad theories that integrate findings from the different approaches.
Leadership has been studied in different ways, depending on the
researcher's conception of leadership and methodological preferences.
(1989: 253-254)So, even after four decades of leadership for Stogdill (writing in 1974), and five
and half decades for Yukl (writing in 1989), mainstream leadership studies was
still fragmented and – albeit with a far greater volume of studies – in a similar
situation to hospitality leadership studies today.
The observations above are not intended as a critique of individual researchers or
research teams – indeed, when there are so many unexplored aspects of a field to
pursue, it is natural that a wide range of research questions will emerge. Even
within the relatively focused area of empowerment, as the first example above
illustrates, there exist a range of specific research questions and, of course, any
number of leadership theories with which to pursue these questions.
The current situation, however, presents a significant challenge to our current and
future understanding of hospitality-leadership issues. Specifically, in the absence
of an integrated / cohesive framework of research knowledge, there is no
hospitality-specific conceptual-level guidance for researchers with regard to how
they identify knowledge gaps, construct future research questions and design
future research projects.
Nevertheless, hospitality scholars can, at least, take some encouragement from
the fact that leadership studies in hospitality are at an early stage of evolutionary
development. The following section draws upon Hunt’s (1999) examination of the
evolution of generic leadership studies to consider the early evolutionary stage of
leadership research in hospitality. Following that, Pittaway et al.’s (1998) review
of leadership research in hospitality and their framework for future research is
critically evaluated.
3.10 Evolution of leadership studies in hospitality
The historical development of the generic leadership studies field has been
examined by Hunt (1999) who drew upon Reichers and Schneider's (1990)