Waiting for Godot: Eight major problems in the odd field of leadership studies

Mats Alvesson

doi:10.1177/1742715017736707

Waiting for Godot: Eight major problems in the odd field of leadership studies

Mats Alvesson

Management

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

45 Citations (SciVal)

Abstract

This paper identifies eight significant shortcomings in leadership studies. The field is large, divergent and fragmented, making it difficult to make broad generalizations, but the majority of all research suffer from most of what may be referred to as the Hollywood, Disneyland, closed system, two kinds of people, bees and the honeypot, reification, tautology and hyperreality problems. The paper suggests ways of reducing these problems.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	27-43
Number of pages	17
Journal	Leadership
Volume	15
Issue number	1
Early online date	3 Dec 2017
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1177/1742715017736707
Publication status	Published - 1 Feb 2019

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s) 2017.

Keywords

Godot
honey pot
leadership
reification
tautology

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Sociology and Political Science
Strategy and Management

Access to Document

10.1177/1742715017736707

Cite this

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Waiting for Godot: Eight major problems in the odd field of leadership studies

Abstract

Bibliographical note

Keywords

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Access to Document

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