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This paper uses discourse theory to obtain a broader understanding of how research impact of sustainable tourism research develops in the environmental policy domain. Discourse theory shifts emphasis from the substance of science versus policy to the use of science in policy processes and explains the political dimensions of policymaking. We first review a well-documented science-policy gap in sustainable tourism research on climate change to develop an alternative conceptualisation of research impact. Then, using a case study approach, we investigate this framework by evaluating the impact of a PhD thesis about aviation’s global CO2 emissions on the Dutch aviation policy process. The case study shows research impact is entwined with various other elements, and embedded in a specific governance context. Research influenced contrasting science-policy interactions and contributed to conflicting policy actions and reactions. The impact of research in this case was manifested through the formation and interplay of multiple knowledge objects that were both embraced and marginalised. In settings like this, research is used to legitimise pre-existing policy positions rather than to develop new policies. We discuss the implications of narrow conceptions of research impact. The paper highlights the need for advanced policy analysis in sustainable tourism research.

Innovation is a taken-for-granted buzzword of modern society that is generally viewed as positive. The concept and its use in organisations have received limited scrutiny in the innovation literatures. This thesis therefore examines the propriety of innovation for the coordination of novelty and change. Using different theories premised on post-structuralist thought, it attempts to open up the concept of innovation. To this end, it examines an industry that has always been particularly prone to innovation and change: the Dutch travel industry. Drawing from three interrelated case studies conducted in this setting from 2016 to 2019, it examines the concept of innovation and its uses from up close. The first case study (The Machine) traces the development of a carbon management calculator for tour operators. This technology failed. Or did it not? The second case study (The Expert) examines how a PhD thesis on aviation-induced climate change impacted the Dutch aviation policy process and contributed to a new narrative on sustainable aviation in which technological innovation plays a prominent role. The third case study (The Firm) investigates the development of an innovation unit in a large, corporate tourism organisation (TUI) and illustrates how this unit ended up strengthening the organisational practices it set out to transform. The case studies present innovation as a collection of emergent, conflicting practices and communications that generate their own support and resistance. The thesis shows that innovation is highly political and sheds light on the paradox of innovation: attempts to create novelty can end up reinforcing the status quo. Promises of novel technologies can play a prominent role in this process.  The thesis draws attention to chameleons: actors that – like their reptilian equivalent – wittingly or unwittingly change colour to suit new dawns but remain their former shape. It concludes with directions that can help researchers and practitioner

This paper studies the productive role of innovation in organisations. Using the post-structuralist insight that innovation is an open concept that can become performative, we shift the emphasis from analysing innovations themselves to analysing how the concept of innovation affects the organisational practices through which it acquires meaning. Deploying this framework, we studied the development of an innovation unit within TUI, a corporate tour operator. We found that actors interpreted innovation in different ways and that initially the innovation unit was considered a failure. The subsequent dramatisation of this failure resulted in a new version of this innovation unit that strengthened established actors and institutions within the organisation. Our study shows how the use of the concept of innovation in an organisation can both stimulate and hamper its innovativeness. Addressing this paradox requires sensitivity to the concept's productive role and evaluations of innovation that look beyond accomplished results.