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Inter-organizational relationships with core and peripheral partners in heritage tourism clusters: Divergent effects on innovation

Dioni Elche (Department of Business Administration, Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha, Cuenca, Spain)
Pedro M. García-Villaverde (Department of Business Administration, Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha, Cuenca, Spain)
Ángela Martínez-Pérez (Department of Business Administration, Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha, Cuenca, Spain)

International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management

ISSN: 0959-6119

Article publication date: 22 June 2018

Issue publication date: 6 July 2018

662

Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to analyze the effects of inter-organizational relationships with core and peripheral partners on innovation in heritage tourism clusters.

Design/methodology/approach

The empirical analysis uses original data (collected by means of a postal questionnaire) based at UNESCO World Heritage Cities in Spain. The sample consists of 215 companies, and the methodology used is hierarchical linear regression.

Findings

The authors identify divergent effects of relationships with core and peripheral partners on innovation. In particular, the effect of core partners has an inverted U-shaped form, while that of peripheral partners is U-shaped.

Research limitations/implications

The results may be extrapolated to other heritage tourism clusters located in World Heritage Cities with some precaution. The paper does not jointly analyze the effects of relationships with core and peripheral partners on the innovation of firms in tourism clusters.

Practical/implications

Clustered tourism firms should not rely only on relationships with core agents, because beyond a critical threshold, returns in terms of innovation diminish. Firms should strive to establish relationships with peripheral agents in spite of the initial difficulties and the costs associated with network building, because positive returns soon materialize.

Originality/value

This paper contributes to the literature on inter-organizational relationships by analyzing the impact of relationships with core and peripheral partners on innovation in clustered firms. The authors highlight the existence of the divergent curvilinear effects of these relationships on heritage tourism clusters.

Keywords

Citation

Elche, D., García-Villaverde, P.M. and Martínez-Pérez, Á. (2018), "Inter-organizational relationships with core and peripheral partners in heritage tourism clusters: Divergent effects on innovation", International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, Vol. 30 No. 6, pp. 2438-2457. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJCHM-11-2016-0611

Publisher

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Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2018, Emerald Publishing Limited

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