Ekonomiczne Problemy Turystyki (Jan 2015)
The Scientific Identity of Tourism Research. Polish Views Versus Those of Foreign Academia
Abstract
The aim of this article is to present empirical results of a survey devoted to the issue of the scientific identity of Polish and international scholars of tourism. The survey has a firm theoretical background and the results are presented in the light of achievements of international literature. The article features: 1) a theoretical discussion and an overview of previous research and selected literary sources; 2) a presentation of the results of the author’s empirical studies of the scientific identity carried out among Polish and international researchers of tourism; 3) more general conclusions related to the issues addressed in the paper.The empirical research project has the qualitative character (the non-representative survey on a purposeful sample) and was carried out in 2013 and 2014. The project covers two subsamples: international and Polish. The international subsample encompasses around 180 scholars of different scientific grades, age and experience in tourism research. The respondents represent leading public and private institutions (mostly universities as well as national and international tourism scientific associations and independent institutes) from almost 50 countries and all the continents. The Polish subsample includes 90 tourism scholars of various age, profile, experience and academic degree. They are representatives of the main national academic centres and scientific disciplines which deal with the issues related to tourism.The general results suggest that Polish scholars of tourism hold more conservative positions than their international colleagues as far as the recognition of the specific scientific identity of tourism research is concerned. At the same time it should be noted that some similarities in the Polish and international academia’s views on the subject in question exist. Finally, it should also be stated that both Polish and international scholars dealing with tourism are internally divided as regards the methodological position of tourism research – especially its cognitive and formal status. The article develops certain ideas and findings presented in the previous works by the author focused mainly on the scientific identity of Polish scholars of tourism.
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