How Theories Become Tourism Knowledge

Tourism scholarship imports extensively from neighboring disciplines, yet little is known about how theoretical content changes after entering the field. This study examines the reproduction, selective transmission, and domain transformation of the Theory of Planned Behavior, Social Exchange Theory, and Self-Determination Theory. Using 1,212 tourism and hospitality studies, we combine citation genealogy with nested full-text coding of theoretical transformation and verified citation-edge transmission. Results reveal distinct citation architectures, subfield-specific lineages, and heterogeneous forms of theory extension. Citation descendants are not necessarily theoretical descendants: later studies may cite influential tourism papers while retaining only selected constructs or mechanisms. We distinguish citation diffusion from theoretical generativity and show that reach, breadth, and verified transmission depth capture different aspects of cumulative theoretical development.