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This study aims to review the empirical studies on empowering leadership in hospitality and tourism and proposes an associated research agenda.

A disciplined selection process using transparent inclusion and exclusion criteria resulted in a final sample of 25 empirical studies. The research results from these studies were systematically analyzed using content analysis.

The synthesis of these articles highlights that: studies on empowering leadership in hospitality and tourism are mainly based on motivational theories and theories with a social orientation; empowering leadership has been examined within various cultures mostly using quantitative methods; multiple instruments are used to measure empowering leadership; and empowering leadership is a variously defined construct that has been found to promote creativity and innovation, service performance and various employee attitudes and behaviors.

The authors provide an integrated framework for empowering leadership in hospitality and tourism contexts, proposing theoretical implications and directions for further research.

This review identified growing research interest in empowering leadership in diverse hospitality and tourism contexts, as well as an increasing impetus to understand how leaders can effectively empower their subordinates.

The study provides a systematic understanding of empirical research examining the theoretical frameworks, antecedents, mediators, moderators and consequences of empowering leadership in various hospitality and tourism contexts. Significant opportunities remain for further research to address the gaps and limitations discovered.

Innovation is ever more critical for sustainable business performance in the contemporary, global economic and social context. Small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are arguably well positioned to innovate through their potential for rapid adjustment. Although leadership and organizational climate have been identified as playing a key role in innovation, little is known about whether such influences play out in SMEs. The aim of this study is to explore how leaders shape the organizational climate of their firms to enhance innovation.

The article presents findings from semi-structured interviews conducted with 20 CEOs of SMEs in the Vietnamese tourism sector.

The findings indicate that SME leaders in the tourism sector influenced an organizational climate that provided for autonomy and supported innovation through a number of leadership approaches. They also used daily interaction-based practices to drive the innovative behaviors of employees and developed reward systems to encourage innovation in their organizations.

This study explored leaders' approaches toward developing an organizational climate to stimulate innovation in tourism SMEs. Where leaders share frequent communication and knowledge with their subordinates, they perceive a climate for innovation developments, which stimulates innovation in tourism SMEs.

The study provides implications for managers to improve creativity and innovation in firms through the development of reward and incentive systems along with leadership and team development programs.

This study describes how different leader approaches affect innovation through orientating the organizational climate and business processes within their firms toward encouraging staff to initiate and try out new ideas.

This paper aims to present the findings of an analysis of the environmentally sustainable policies and practices (ESPPs) used by independent and chain-affiliated hotels. The study aimed to ascertain the engagement of hotels with ESPPs and provide tentative evidence of their commitment towards meeting the expectations of environmentally conscious stakeholders.

This study used secondary data and content analysis to examine the ESPPs of a sample of 220 hotels in Melbourne, Australia. A systematic review was conducted of hotel websites to reveal, in a tabulated way, the range of reporting of environmental material provided by various rated hotels.

This analysis suggests that environmentally friendly business practices are prominently displayed by the hotels sampled; however, independent non-chain affiliated hotels are yet to adopt ESPPs in any visible way.

This study was broadly informed by stakeholder theory (Freeman, 1984) and aimed to ascertain the engagement of hotels with ESPPs. While previous studies have focussed on chain hotels, this research involved a greater range of hotels of different profiles to highlight the mix of ESPPs across the hotel sector. Rather than merely examining the corporate websites of hotel companies, the research additionally examined ESPPs at the individual hotel property level, as this is where policies are implemented into practice. The extant literature to date has not studied the extent to which ESPPs are adopted by independent and chain-affiliated hotels at this level, and it is this research gap that the study addresses.

The purpose of this paper is to develop an integrative conceptual framework of the “talented hospitality entrepreneur”. In doing so, the authors address the current lack of understanding of talent at the individual entrepreneurial level and the lack of integration between the talent and entrepreneurship literatures and specifically consider the hospitality context.

This conceptual paper systematically synthesizes the extant literature and links key concepts within talent management, entrepreneurship, hospitality and human resource management to develop a model of the talented hospitality entrepreneur.

Seven propositions emerge from the literature synthesis, and the integrative conceptual model is developed to define the individual antecedents of the talented hospitality entrepreneur and their outcomes for success.

To date, understanding of the individual level of talent has been neglected in the management literature. The quandary is that the extant literature on talent has focused on the management of talent at an organizational level, while the entrepreneurship literature has concentrated on spatial macro-level effects. Further, the notion of talent in hospitality literature remains underexplored. Adopting an inclusive view of talent, the authors offer a new integrative framework explaining the constituencies of talent for hospitality entrepreneurs and an associated research agenda.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effects of empowering leadership, directive leadership and initiating structure on innovation in small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and examine the mediating role of climate for innovation on those relationships.

Applying structural equation modeling, the study empirically tested the model on a sample of 330 employees from tourism SMEs in Vietnam.

Results indicated that climate for innovation mediated the relationship between empowering leadership and innovation and also initiating structure and innovation. Whereas empowering leadership was found to have a negative direct influence on innovation, directive leadership was unrelated to innovation.

The results of this study contribute to the literature by expanding the existing research on SME innovation, assessing the effect of diverse leadership styles and a climate for innovation on the innovation performance of SMEs. The findings enrich the literature by indicating the contribution of empowering leadership, directive leadership and initiating structure on encouraging innovation in SMEs.

When leading subordinates in the SME context, leaders who have a clear understanding of the effect of empowerment, direction and initiating structure can optimally seek to stimulate innovation. These leadership approaches influence employees’ task, interpersonal and role-related processes that shape a climate for innovation.

The novelty of this paper is that it examines the differential influences of empowering leadership, directive leadership and initiating structure on innovation and the mediating role of climate for innovation on these relationships.

The aim of this opinion piece is to seek to cast a critical eye over the event studies field to chart its progress as an emerging area of study, relative to its close relations tourism, hospitality and leisure.

Viewpoint approach.

The paper highlights various challenges that event educators and researchers face in advancing event studies to discipline status.

It is timely that, as the quantum of event research and the number of event management education programmes surge, those involved in the field engage in greater critical introspection. This opinion piece attempts to provide such a reflective insight, which has been largely absent from the event studies literature to date.