12: Epilogue

Qualitative research has gradually come into its own and is now recognized for its significant contributions to the development of knowledge and insight into the field of leadership studies. A proliferation of textbooks, guidebooks, and handbooks (e.g., Denzin & Lincoln, 2005; Miles, Huberman, & Saldaña, 2014; Patton, 2002; Silverman, 2001; Strauss & Corbin, 2008) define and describe the different philosophical foundations underlying qualitative research, the specific methods used, and criteria to judge the quality of qualitative research. In this book, I reviewed, analyzed, and discussed conceptual/theoretical and empirical articles describing both frequently and infrequently used research methods in the study of leadership. For some of these methods, such as phenomenology (see Chapter 8), for example, there is a considerable imbalance between theoretical and empirical studies. Similarly, in narrative analysis, theoretical papers outweigh the empirical studies. In other instances, there is a more balanced presentation of theoretical and empirical works. For instance, mixed methods leadership studies (see Chapter 6), which yielded the largest number of published articles, theoretical discussions of triangulating qualitative and quantitative methods, are mirrored by a critical mass of empirical studies which illustrate the various ways of combining different techniques falling into the qualitative and quantitative camps.