3.12 Reconceptualising the research agenda
As described in Section 3.8 above, this review has determined that the collected
findings from across the range of leadership-focussed hospitality studies cannot
be aggregated to provide a holistic, or even partial, theoretical framework of
hospitality leadership. This is largely due to the ad hoc way in which individual
hospitality leadership studies have been designed and undertaken. It is also likely
to be the case, considering the ongoing absence of a critical mass of hospitality
leadership knowledge, that hospitality leadership researchers have been forced to
draw upon generic leadership theory and practice. The fragmentary nature of the
collected findings of hospitality leadership studies may, therefore, stem from the
broad nature of the generic field which contains a vast array of theories, sub-
theories and alternative theories.
The lack of (i) depth of applied knowledge and (ii) of an integrated theoretical
framework in the hospitality leadership field further serves to hamper the
deductive development of new research questions and themes for investigation.
The evolution of concepts - in terms of both theory and application, and as
described within Reichers and Schneider's (1990) framework – is based on an
iterative, augmentative development of ideas through continual critique and re-
evaluation. Currently, the evolution of hospitality leadership studies remains at
an early stage and will continue to do so until a range of different researchers
begin to adopt augmentative approaches which draw upon and progress the
findings and theoretical developments of existing hospitality studies.
Pittaway et al.’s (1998) approach to developing a future research agenda did not
draw upon the existing body of (theoretical or applied) hospitality leadership
knowledge, but rather drew upon the generic leadership literature. They
categorised studies based on each study’s ontological assumptions about human
behaviour and the organisational-level at which the studies were focussed. While
this approach was used successfully to generate a range of future research
themes and questions, the fact that these were not grounded on existing
hospitality-specific theory and knowledge may have hindered the development of
the field.
The critical examination of Pittaway et al.’s framework has shown that it does not
align well with the existing tradition of hospitality leadership research.
Accordingly, it is argued that this is not the most appropriate model for hospitality