Innovation, knowledge transfer

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Innovation, knowledge transfer and destination
development a space for leadership?
Anne-Kathrin Zschiegner Dr. Tim Coles Prof.
Gareth Shaw
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• Destination Development, Innovation
• and Knowledge Transfer

• Main challenges in UK tourism industry is to
  create a
• competitive, world-class tourism industry
  (Tomorrows
• Tourism, 1999)
• Regional development at heart of this through
• Clusters
• Communities of practice
• Learning regions
• Learning and innovation as key resource of
  competitive advantage

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Innovation, Knowledge Transfer and Tourism

• Comparatively little research on innovation and
  knowledge
• management in tourism (e.g., Hjalager, 2002
  Cooper, 2006 Hall and
• Williams, 2008)
• Notion of networks (formal and informal) are
  vital to
• spillover and transfer (e.g., Bathelt et al.,
  2004 Grabher, 2003)
• e.g. local buzz
• pipelines
• boundary spanners

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• Significant research questions
• Who leads innovation and knowledge transfer?
• Why do they lead the process?
• What style of leadership do they employ?
• How might leadership impact on knowledge
  transfer?
• What are the policy implications?

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2. Leadership and Tourism

• Literature on leadership focuses on
• Internal leadership in large organisation (e.g.,
  Yukl, 2002)
• Effect of leadership on followers motivation
  and performance
• Personality traits in leadership behaviour
• Leadership vs. Management (e.g., Antonakis et
  al., 2004 Bass, 1998)
• Emergent leadership, informal leadership, shared
  leadership (Egri Herman, 2000 Neubert
  Taggar, 2004 Pescosolido, 2001, 2002)

• Only very few explicit studies of leadership in
  tourism
• (e.g., Hinkin and Tracey, 1994, 1996)

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Full range leadership theory
Key traits
Transformational Leadership
Transactional Leadership
Laissez-faire
(Source Bass and Avolio, 2007 4)
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translated into a study of Leadership and
Innovation in Tourism
Other businesses recognise the environmental
management practices of my business. I recommend
environmental strategies to others as a way of
improving their businesses.
I consider firms environmental reputation when
choosing suppliers.
I only enact environmental measures if because I
have to (e.g. by law).
I only help other businesses to enact
environmental measures if they are in
difficulties.
There is no clear evidence that I need to
improve the environmental management of my
business.
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• Methodological difficulties
• Internal vs. external leadership
• MLQ scales
• Translation on MLQ to context (tourism) of
  application
• Not easy to map across studies as scales vary and
  inconsistent
• Overlap between external leadership and knowledge
  transfer
• Scales of measurement
• Leadership fuzzy concept
• Difficult to translate leadership concept into
  laypersons terms

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• Case-study for implementation of sustainable
  tourism measures
• Seen as means of creating and maintaining
  regional advantage/competitiveness
• Questionnaire development based on Multifactor
  Leadership Questionnaire (Form 5X) (Avolio and
  Bass, 1995)
• Semi-structured interviews
• Location
• Piloted August 2008 in Exeter
• Main survey October/November 2008 in Torbay Area
• Participants
• Serviced accommodation businesses

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Observations and recommendations

• Green Tourism Business Scheme (Green
  accreditation)
• good audit but not source of information
• very useful in pushing ideas and like,
  and, and encouraging
• you to do it.
• South West Tourism (the regional tourist board)
• But they are not up to date with it
  either.
• they dont always get that information
  out to the right people
• it be better if they actually went away
  and did something on a
• more of a practical basis . But they
  dont.
• Individual businesses advise public sector (e.g.,
  City Council, SW Water)
• Official organisations vs. other businesses

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• Personal dedication drives environmental measures
  
• trying to push things forward, not only for
  ourselves but for other businesses as well

Loss of momentum due to financial and time
restrictions, and information shortages
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Thank you for your attention! Look forward to a
lively discussion