A great deal of research has has been designed to study directive and supportive leadership, but few studies address participative and achievement oriented leadership. The claims of the path-goal theory remain tentative because the research findings to date do not provide s full and consistent picture of the basic assumptions and corollaries of path-goal theory (Evans, 1996; Jermier, 1996, Schriesheim & Neider, 1996).
A total of 482 results were retrieved from 120 studies that were found in 103 articles and monograms, dissertations, and unpublished manustripts giving the researchers a total sample sixe of 83,105.
An appropriate instrument has yet to be identified that could measure suppportive and achievement-oriented….Previous instruments used varied ..the correleations varied too mush. Thus, moderator analyses were conducted only for studies that used instruments that did not obtain different mean correlations for a given relationship. Clearly, it is unfornuate that a single, appropriate instrument was not identified early and used uniformly for testing path-goal theories. Suggests that future studies should include measurement of the leadership behaviors from different sources than those used for measurement of the dependent variable. The common method variance problem operated for most of the studies. Except for the studies that used the Leadership Opinion Questionnaire (LOQ) instrument, sugjective measures of both the independent and dependent variable were obtained from subordinated. Even the performance measures were subjectively assessed in all but three of the studies. The leadership behaviors should involve different sources. Woffard and Criska, 1993).
Evans, M. G. (1996). M. G. (1996). R. J. House’s “A path-goal theory of leader effectiveness.” Leadership Quarterly, 7(3), 305-309.
Jermier, J. M. (1996). The path-goal theory of leadership: A subtextual analysis.