Towards a framework to guide evidence-based leadership development and evaluation in tourism and hospitality graduate education

Abstract

Leadership development has attracted considerable interest of both researchers and practitioners. Much of the interest is due to the rapidly changing, complex and ambiguous world that calls for 21st century skills and capabilities to grow sustained business performance through effective leadership. However, while a positive link between effective leadership and performance has been examined in previous research, effectiveness of current leadership development initiatives in tourism and hospitality graduate education has yet to be clearly established. This conceptual paper presents the core leadership development program elements and a conceptual framework, which can guide not only the design and development but also the evaluation of graduate leadership programs in tourism and hospitality. The paper concludes with several implications for further research and practice.