Innovativeness and business performances in tourism SMEs
Introduction
Research on innovation in the tourism industry has acquired growing relevance in recent years (Hall, 2009a, Paget et al., 2010). Various aspects related to this area have been treated in an increasingly abundant literature (Hjalager, 2010). Thus, for example, contributions were made during the last decade on networks and clusters in tourism innovation (Novelli, Schmitz, & Spencer, 2006), innovation systems in tourism (Hall & Williams, 2008), the appearance of new tourism products, (Edwards, Martinac, & Miller, 2008), tourism innovation and internationalization (Williams & Shaw, 2011), the application of new IT, communication and management technologies in tourism activities (Moscardo, 2008), and, recently, cross border regional innovation systems and the influence of tourism on facilitating innovative processes (Weidenfeld, 2013). However, despite the growing interest in empirical research on innovation, no model has been developed for the innovative behavior of firms in tourism. Given the noteworthy differences in innovations in services (Drejer, 2004, Martínez-Ros and Orfila-Sintes, 2012) and specifically in tourism (Hjalager, 2010, Križaj et al., 2014, Volo, 2006), the literature pinpoints the need for a specific study on innovative behavior (Camisón & Montfort-Mir, 2012) and its economic outcomes in tourism firms (Lin, 2013). Understanding of innovation patterns in these firms is fundamental to developing an innovation policy that contributes in greater measure to increasing productivity (Blake, Sinclair, & Campos-Soria, 2006), profitability (Martínez-Ros & Orfila-Sintes, 2012) and competitiveness in firms and tourist destinations (Camisón & Montfort-Mir, 2012).
The study of innovation in services has been taken on from different analytical perspectives. The “assimilation, differentiation, inversion, and integration” (Gallouj, 2010) or “assimilation–demarcation–integration” discussion (Gallouj & Savona, 2009) categorizes literature on innovation in services (Gallouj & Djellal, 2010). In the specific case of tourism, the literature mentions the possibility of following two very different research focuses: those of the “converging and diverging line” (Hjalager, 2010, p. 8). However, mainstream innovation research has rarely broached the area of tourism (Alsos, Eide, & Madsen, 2014). Rather than using the strategy of assimilation, which transfers to tourism the theories and models of mainstream innovation research, other researchers adopt a divergent strategy in order to develop new context-sensitive models for tourism (Alsos et al., 2014). Although tourism is a very special and well-defined sector that requires analysis of a divergent nature (Song, Dwyer, Li, & Cao, 2012), the convergent focus brings general knowledge on innovation nearer to tourism research and could be of great interest (Camisón & Montfort-Mir, 2012). Accordingly, existing theories on innovation developed in other sectors can improve understanding of the same phenomenon within the context of tourism (Clausen & Madsen, 2014). The use of the convergent focus provides advantages in terms of comparability beneficial to tourism studies and research on innovation in general (Hjalager, 2010). This focus creates synergies in the advancement of knowledge of innovation and facilitates joint planning of innovation support.
In a field where research-based knowledge remains scarce (Alsos et al., 2014), it is of interest to employ a diversity of research strategies (Gallouj, 2010) in order to more successfully handle the heterogeneity and complexity of innovation in tourism. Collaboration or synthesis between the convergent and divergent focuses acquires meaning, giving rise to a mixed approach or integration focus. This research strategy is promising for the study of innovation in services (Gallouj & Savona, 2009) and namely in tourism (Alsos et al., 2014), and can be directed toward the design of theoretical models with integrative analyses of innovation (Gallouj, 2010).
The purpose of this paper is to analyze innovativeness and its relation with business performances in a sample of Andalusian SMEs belonging to the hospitality industry. To this end, a two-stage model was formulated and contrasted. Said model explains the level of innovation and its relation with profitability in these firms, thus providing a micro-level view of the innovation process in tourism. This model is justified in the recent research of Hjalager (2010) and Alsos et al. (2014), whose papers acknowledge the existence of different gaps in current research on tourism. This research paper covers some of said gaps, the first directly related to limited knowledge on innovative activity in tourism (Hjalager, 2010). Due to the paucity of empirical research on relevant aspects of innovation in tourism (Abelsen et al., 2014, Alsos et al., 2014, Clausen and Madsen, 2014, Hjalager, 2014, Rønningen and Lien, 2014, Sundbo et al., 2007), more empirical evidence and quantitative knowledge on innovation in this sector are needed (Clausen and Madsen, 2014, Hjalager, 2010, Rønningen and Lien, 2014). Our paper undertakes the study of innovation through a multivariate analysis of the factors influencing innovative outcomes.
Another relevant research gap refers to the relationship between innovation and economic performances in tourism firms (Hjalager, 2010). This limitation is common in studies that analyze innovation (Crossan & Apaydin, 2010). To contribute to moderating said limitation, a hypothesis contrast was carried out testing the positive impact of innovation on profitability; the intensity of this relationship was later analyzed in organizations in the sector. Likewise, as the literature suggests, the study contributes to broadening knowledge on innovation in small tourism firms (Clausen & Madsen, 2014).
The paper is divided into six sections. Following this introduction, next section reviews the literature and elaborates the conceptual model used. In ‘Empirical Research’ section, data collection is described, along with sample structure and variables included in the study. In ‘Method and Results’ section, hypotheses are contrasted using the two-stage model proposed, and in the next section, the main findings are analyzed. Finally, last section contains the main discussion and conclusions obtained from this research.
Section snippets
Background
In tourism, the role of SMEs is very relevant (Hjalager, 2007, Weidenfeld, 2013, Williams and Shaw, 2011) and especially important when responding to customers’ most specific demands and providing them with the tourist services requested (Novelli et al., 2006). The micro-level or firm-level perspective may be a way to supplement meso- and macro-level analyses (Asheim, Boschma, & Cooke, 2011). Specifically, the micro focus offers alternatives for the analysis of innovative capability of firms in
Data collection
Andalusia has one of the lowest regional per capita incomes in Spain, and is one of the regions whose economy most depends on tourism. The dynamism that tourism activity has shown in a regional context marked by economic crisis and by unemployment makes the hospitality industry a bastion of economic recovery for the most populous region in Spain.
The sample used is formed by 95 Andalusian SMEs, of between 20 and 250 workers, dedicated to Accommodation and Food Service Activities (Section I, NACE
First stage
The empirical contrast of both models (innovation in products and innovation in processes) was carried out using an adjustment to a multiple linear regression of the following type:
The previous exploration of asymmetry and kurtosis in the data showed a reasonable shape for all variables with the exception of size; due to the usual log-normal distribution of business size, a logarithmic transformation was advisable. No relevant problems of collinearity were
Findings
The results obtained show that the model possesses a somewhat greater explanatory capacity in innovations in products (R′2 = 0.364) than in innovations in processes (R′2 = 0.298). In both cases, we should note the high level of significance of the models (p < 0.01). As can be observed in Table 4, seven explanatory variables are common to both regressions, but only 3 are significant in both models: Attendance at fairs and conferences by non-managers, Patents and other industrial property and Strategic
Discussion and conclusions
This paper aims to reduce knowledge gaps regarding innovation in tourism SMEs and the relationships between innovation and the economic performances in tourism (Hjalager, 2010). The contrast and analysis of the model in the hospitality industry in Andalusia suggests the following conclusions.
Firstly, the paper contributes to remedying the existing knowledge gap on innovation in tourism firms (Hjalager, 2010). The two-stage model describes the influence of the determinants of innovative
Acknowledgements
This paper has been elaborated from a project funded by the Andalusian Public Foundation of the Andalusian Studies Centre (Government of Andalusia) in the 7th edition for Research Projects (ref. PRY096/11). The authors also express their gratitude to the anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on earlier versions of this article.
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