Knowledge Production Systems in Tourism in Higher Education Institutions: Proposing A Performance Assessment Protocol Based on A Brazilian Experience

Abstract

Considering the gap between production of knowledge in tourism and its transference (mainly by the socialization educational process, but also via tacit apprenticeship in workplace and also in general terms, e.g. university – society diffusion of knowledge), this paper presents a protocol developed by the authors driven to manage human resources (a critical factor of success) in the Knowledge Production Systems in Tourism (KPST). For that, we have made a literature review, giving relevance to the problem of the absence of knowledge production in tourism and its consequences. Methodologically, the paper focuses on the micro-level of the systems’ components (human resources), aiming to identify the main regular characteristics and making a correlation of them with the other members of the system. These profiles, relationally combined, can offer an analytical structure of the team, and doing so, we can observe their most prominent and distinctive factors in a KPST, as well their fragilities. Specifically, it is presented here the assessment of the professors-researchers’ team performance aiming to achieve an academic management tool. Our results show: (1) the collective productivity and their related profile, as well (2) the degree of expertise and asymmetry in individual productivity of professors-researchers, and (3) the possible inconsistencies between the expertise of these professionals versus their performanced areas. In conclusion, two main contributions are advocated: (1) the preparation of a research protocol itself, which has been translated into software, and (2) the derived indicators used for the survey of diagnosis, for monitoring and evaluating the performance academic management.