Teaching-research nexus in tourism, hospitality and event studies

I was happy to accept the task when I was asked to write a chapter on the teaching–research nexus in tourism studies. Through my career as a teacher in the fields of tourism, hospitality and events (which I will hereafter refer to as TH&E studies as I consider them to be an integral whole) I have been reflecting on that nexus. I have pondered upon what it means for myself, how I collect material for courses, how I use my own research to back up syllabi, and how I reflect and publish on teaching and learning practices. My current work, as director for an institute constituted of three TH&E departments in three organizations, where I coordinate the departments’ strategies and operations, is very much related to this same nexus. The institute’s stated aim is to carry out teaching, research and services in the field of TH&E. Whilst this on the surface sounds like a straightforward aim, the reality is far from it, because those words mean different things to the stakeholders in the different organizations. Here I am not simply talking about organizational cultures or differences in opinion, but I am talking about crucial differences in what it means ‘to teach’, ‘to research’ and ‘to provide services’, depending on what type of TH&E organization is in question. I will therefore analyze what these concepts can mean, and how these meanings alter people’s practices.The empirical case, and the context this chapter acts within, will take you to northern Finland, to Lapland – the region of the European Union that is mostly north of the Arctic Circle. The case study is an institute based in Lapland, and the legislation and organizational context will be Finnish – but the implications I highlight are global in their reach, and I will show why this subjective case is a good proxy for the larger context. The ‘teaching–research nexus – TRN’ (Angelo and Asmar, 2005) carries within it assumptions about teaching and learning that takes place as an outcome of research conducted, but also much more than that. A nexus is a theoretical concept which presumes that there are two separate entities that relate to one another through ‘a complex series of connections’(Crowther, 1995, p. 782). How they relate to one another, and what sort of implications this has on curricula created, and on teaching practices, is what I will focus on.If you are a reader accustomed to management texts then you might at times bedissatisfied with the freedoms I am taking in addressing you in person, and in talking about myself in the first person – but let us immediately clarify that epistemologically the ‘truth’, the data, and the new knowledge this chapter will provide in no way differ from ones that would be written in a pseudo-scientificthird-person tense – I would still be writing it, and you would still be reading it, regardless of whether it is stated openly or not.