The role of network position, tie strength and knowledge diversity in tourism and hospitality scholars' creativity

This study proposes a model of a structural hole, with knowledge diversity as a moderator that influences the quality and quantity of creativity outputs. The proposed models used a sample of 2316 international academic publications listed in social science citation indexes by 1661 tourism and hospitality scholars over a 32-year period across different regions of China (e.g., Mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Macao). The results showed a curvilinear pattern of the relationships between the position of structural holes with the quantity and quality of creativity output. In addition, we found that knowledge diversity may positively influence creativity, as it performs the negative role of moderating the relationships between network positions and the quality and quantity of creativity outputs.