Public and private networks in tourism – : barriers to network identity construction and commitmen

• IntroductionDestinations all over the world encompass a broad range of stakeholders who all aspire to increase the tourism industry to accomplish regional development. At these destinations, there are many different stakeholders, who have mutual interest in a specific region, and there are different attempts to promote cooperation for joint efforts to attract visitors. Moreover, there is an increasing drive for municipalities to influence the tourism business as part of their regional development (Tillväxtverket, 2017).However, the aforementioned development of destinations has proven to involve competing interests between local, national and international stakeholders. Although private enterprises, the municipalities and on-governmental organizations, and residents have a common, or at least partly overlapping, interest in the development of a specific destination, competing interests will occasionally occur (c.f. Elbe et al., 2018). For instance, private businesses, like small local entrepreneurs, could be in direct competition with national or international corporations, despite the fact that they may have much to gain from joint marketing efforts (c.f. investment in a common brand). Similarly, public1organizations have a shared interest in the development of the tourism industry to increase tax revenues and job creation. However, municipalities have a greater responsibility for communities and its residents.As in many other sectors, public and private interactions are common within the tourism industry due to an overall reduction in public sector funding (Valente et al., 2015). Relationships between public and private actors are also set up to conjointly pool resources, share risks in the process of building, maintaining and developing public services (Keränen, 2017). Interactions between public-private actors have been acknowledged as important since these relationships enable firms to influence decisions within areas such as the public sector, rules and actions that can affect how the firm is perceived as legitimate or not (Hadjikhani, Lee, & Ghauri, 2008; Jansson, Saqib, & Sharma, 1995) but also as ways to develop new and existing resources. However, research has shown that uncertainty tends to be rather high in these relationships and the roles that the actors play are consequently dynamic and unclear. This in turn also affects how the actors perceive the cooperation between public and private actors (Keränen, 2017) and their commitment to these types of networks (Elbe et al., 2018). The sought after commitment would be enhanced if a mutual identity could be constituted; still the identity is established from how the stakeholders perceive their roles and relations to each other. So how could the identity of public actors merge with the identity of private actors to establish a mutual and common identity?Despite the apparent advantage to create a network to coordinate mutual, or at least overlapping, interests, it has proven to entail a number of difficult issues of which some will be addressed below. The combination of private and public stakeholders in one organization may have implications for its role and commitments (c.f. Elbe et al. 2009; 2018) i.e. it could influence the perceived identity construction of its constituents. The combination of public and private interests in the same organization could create tension; one perspective could have precedence over the other. For instance, if a publicly funded organization considers it to be its mission to only enhance businesses, there are stakeholder who could be overlooked, such as permanent residents, community services, and other lines of industry. Although the established networks are intended to work towards common goals, there may still be implicit and ambiguous goals, roles and identity formations.2The organizing of public and private interests in order to transform a place and its characteristics into a destination has proven to be a complex process. More research is needed in order to bring further clarity into factors affecting these types of relationships in terms of activities and resources (de Araujo and Bramwell, 2002) as well as how this affects the actors. Although there is a growing scholarly interest in public-private relationships, additional knowledge is needed on how the processes of these types of cooperation evolve (de Araujo and Bramwell, 2002). This is especially so in the context of created networks where the network is constructed rather than emerging and where the aim is to foster and manage activities, resource interactions and actor bonds.This paper sets out to further the understanding of interaction processes where public and private actors attempt to find ways to cooperate on a common issue. This is done by analyzing how the identity of a created network, consisting of public and private actors, develops over time. This paper focuses on explaining how a created network develops over time and why it evolves in the way it does. The purpose is to identify possible barriers to identity construction in a created network consisting of public and private actors. This is done through a case taking its point of departure in the decision of a major infrastructural investment in a destination in Sweden: the building of a new cruise quay on Gotland.Created public-private cooperation – previous research.Interactions between public-private actors have been acknowledged as important since these relationships enable firms to influence decisions within different areas such as the public sector, rules and actions (Keränen, 2017; Elbe et al., 2018) but also as ways to develop new and existing resources. These co-operations are encouraged by governments in many countries as interactions can facilitate the discussions and decisions related to how different activities evolve and are coordinated as well as how public resources are distributed. Moral responsibility and a way to recover citizens’ trust for politicians’ abilities to deliver on electoral pledge when resources are scarce has been emphasized as a reason for cooperation between public and private actors (Velotti, Botti & Vesci, 2012). In a tourism context, private-public cooperation can also increase the competitive advantage of destinations (Kotler et al., 1993).Over the last decades, a growing number of designated organizations for the coordination of tourist actors have been established using the concept of: Destination Management Organizations, DMO (c.f. Elbe et al. 2009). According to UNWTO (2018), the DMO’s3role should, “be to lead and coordinate activities under a coherent strategy in pursuit of this common goal.” The argument in research, and in practice, has been that these destination organizations can manage marketing and coordinate different actors from varying sectors in the society. Through this, it is assumed that the destination through facilitation of interactions among local actors and creation of networks can stimulate economic growth (Elbe et al., 2018). Hence, specific organizations are politically created to facilitate regional development. In addition, DMOs are proposed as a coalition of many organizations and interest although in practice, these organizations have proven to be composed in different ways, with varying performance (Tillväxtverket 2017). In order to understand the accomplishment the sought-after coordination of diverse stakeholder interests, a network approach has been suggested that encompasses inter-organizational relations (Elbe et al. 2018). The proposed network approach could take into account relations between organizations, not only limited to intra-organizational management models that do not encompass all stakeholders.Despite the numerous potential advantages of public-private interactions, they can be time- consuming and difficult as the participants come from different sectors and with deviating interests. Therefore, actors can perceive a risk that their power and influence may decrease. This can also lead to a lack of trust between the actors (de Araujo & Bramwell, 2002).Tensions and paradoxesInteraction between business actors are built around an economic rational. An assumption is that without economic incentives, interactions between business actors in networks will not come about (Håkansson, 1982; Finke et al., 2017). Different types of resources such as financial resources (capital), physical resources (time, technologies, people) and informational resources (knowledge) are exchanged and combined in new and unique ways through the interactions. Resources are through inherently dynamic and can always be used in new combinations within one relationship or in other relationships (Baraldi et al., 2012). An important condition and a factor influencing the interaction processes are the norms and perceptions of what constitutes the rules of the game. Through the interactions new norms for exchange can form and influence the continuation of the exchange. Whether to engage in the cooperation or not will be affected by previous experiences and expectations as expressed by Mousas and Ford (2009, p. 497): “Recurrent episodes are affected by the perceptions of the participants of their previous interactions and by their expectations of the future.” These exchange relationships, constitute the context in which interaction4processes between actors takes place (Easton & Håkansson, 1996; Håkansson & Ford, 2002; Håkansson & Waluszewski, 2002, 2007; Ritter, 2000).In tourist destinations, many of the resources used to attract tourists are public and common goods. The question of who owns these common goods is not always clear. Beaches, lakes, museums, culture heritage buildings are all resources that can attract tourists but that are public. Exchange relationships and agreement on how these public resources are exploited becomes essential for the survival of those organizations involved in developing act

Ämnesord

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Ekonomi och näringsliv -- Företagsekonomi (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Economics and Business -- Business Administration (hsv//eng)

Publikations- och innehållstyp

ref (ämneskategori)

kon (ämneskategori)