Peer review assessment of originality in tourism journals: critical perspective of key gatekeepers

Abstract

Originality is an essential element of academic research and the peer review system plays a key gatekeeping role in its acceptance. However, there is no consensus as to the precise definition of the concept, its measurement nor the importance attached to it. Primary data from 26 interviews with editors or editorial board members of top ranking tourism journals inform a discussion of the nuanced understanding of the concept and of how different levels of originality (radical vs. incremental), among other peer review assessment criteria, influence tourism publication. Finally, the main challenges relating to recognising originality in the peer review process are identified leading to recommendations for improvements to how originality is assessed.

Originality in Research Publication: Measure, Concept, or Skill?

“…This letter set out to analyze the assessment process for originality in tourism research, as a commentary on Rodríguez, Makkonen, and Williams (2019) and Rodríguez et al (2021).…”

“…This may include originality in theory, methodology, or setting. Rodríguez, Makkonen, and Williams (2019) and Rodríguez et al (2021) focus only on originality, and this comment does likewise. Rodríguez et al (2021) reached three main conclusions.…”

“…I then consider the implications of both these approaches for concepts of originality in publication. Rodríguez, Makkonen, and Williams (2019) found that whilst academic journal editors emphasized the importance of originality, they were not able to define it. For example, their conceptualizations included significance as well as novelty, and they considered originality as a variable rather than a dichotomy.…”

What Are the Drivers of Citations?: Application in Tourism and Hospitality Journals

“…Likewise, the maturity of the topics is specific to research subtopics, resulting in different citation behaviors. Therefore, it is also necessary to consider the topic's originality, which indicates the chronological order in which a particular research topic or method is introduced to the tourism and hospitality literature [52]. Research questions have often been developed based on accumulated knowledge in the field; hence, other researchers may pay attention to recent bibliographic coupling with the newly developed framework and sophisticated methodology [53].…”

“…More specifically, some studies have focused on bibliometrics-based studies in the field of hospitality and tourism [59][60][61]. However, empirical evidence regarding the role of research topic attributes on citation counts, including topic originality and concentration, is still lacking [52].…”