Sample project
Which understanding of inter-organizational cooperation in tourism does the literature have?
Interviews with Swiss tourism experts confirm that under certain circumstances cooperations can be a strategic option with lots of potential for the Swiss tourism business. Along come various barriers and challenges. Hence, we need to improve our knowledge of the phenomenon in the context of tourism. Therefore, we systematically investigate and categorize 63 studies on the topic in order to gather knowledge in the cooperation literature in general and identify research gaps with respect to the tourism sector.
Figure 1: Conditions for successful cooperations. Own presentation following Bieri & Niederberger (2017).
Cooperation in tourism is a heterogeneous phenomenon that can take many forms. Our literature analysis shows the manifoldness of factors leading to cooperation: Cooperative behavior depends on leading skills, resources, abilities, trust, etc., and environmental factors like networks in the market or technological progress. Moreover, our results show that the success depends mainly on managerial functions and processes and on mutual fit of characteristics. Research gaps were identified in the relationship between technological developments and cooperations and the general relationship of cooperative behavior and business strategies.
