Methodological and theoretical considerations in survey research

摘要

As one of the prominent outlets for leadership research, The Leadership Quarterly serves as a window into the shifts taking place across the field. One such shift represented in the journal is the significant drive towards a more scientific and disciplined approach to studying leadership. This shift is mirrored in other similar journals such as Academy of Management Journal which recently published an editorial calling for more laboratory research (Colquitt, 2008). Once dominated by behavioral survey studies, the field of leadership has, over the last 50 years, employed a variety of new methods such as experimental, qualitative and historiometric methodologies (Colquitt, 2008; Mumford, Friedrich, Caughron, & Antes, in press). In each of these approaches, leadership scholars have made strides in increasing the scientific rigor with which studies are conducted. Survey studies, however, remain the dominant methodology utilized in leadership research and could even be characterized as the "typical" leadership study (Hunter, Bedell-Avers, & Mumford, 2007). While they make a valuable contribution to our understanding of leadership, there are several vulnerabilities that can hinder their potential value.