Organizational Factors, Factors of Innovation in Croatia’s Tourist Offer

Fani Kerum – University of Applied Sciences Burgenland, 7000 Eisenstadt, Austria

Neven Šipić – Zagreb School of Business, 10000 Zagreb, Croatia

Dijana Vuković – University of the North, 42000 Varaždin, Croatia

Abstract: Tourism represents an important component of economic devel­opment in Croatia. The competitiveness of Croatia as a tourist destination largely depends on the level of quality of its tourism product in relation to key success factors. The attractiveness and diversity of the offers in tourism stand out as significant factors in the quality of the tourist products of Cro­atia. Hospitality and tourism, of which the hotel industry is an integral part, today represent significant activity in the global framework. It is this activ­ity that provides employment and generates significant income, creating a large part of the gross domestic product (GDP) in the economies of tour­ism-oriented countries and a significant multiplier effect. The quality of the hotel offer is, in part, determined by the hotel’s ability to monitor, adopt, and implement innovative tourist products, services, and solutions for its guests and other important stakeholders. The ability of tourism companies today lies in the implementation and increasing utilization of the advantages of innovation, which thus becomes a decisive factor in the survival of tour­ism companies in today’s turbulent and unstable business environment. To­day, tourism companies are forced to be innovative in order to survive in a changing business environment. Innovativeness can be defined as the de­gree to which an individual, compared to others, adopts novelties. From the point of view of tourism organizations, innovation represents openness to new ideas that are part of their culture. The innovativeness of tourist orga­nizations, and therefore tourism, stems from the ability of tourist organi­zations to continuously transform knowledge and ideas into new tourism products, processes, and systems in order to ensure benefits for stakehold­ers. Understanding the innovation process is possible through the explana­tion of the linear and interactive models. In the linear model, the innovation chain starts with formal research and development activities, which are fol­lowed by applied research and product development. The next step after the development of a new tourist product is its commercialization. However, the innovative process most often does not have such a beginning, which is why an interactive model provides a better explanation, according to which there is no general order for how innovation occurs. Implementing change management strategies and continuously introducing innovations are cru­cial activities in hotel management. These efforts are essential not only for driving the hotel’s growth and development but also for ensuring its long-term survival. According to the above, the goal of the research is to deter­mine the degree of transformational and transactional leadership, dimen­sions of corporate culture, and dimensions of corporate learning that con­tribute to innovations in the hotel, as well as to determine to what extent in­novations affect the creation of value for hotel guests.

8th International Scientific Conference – EMAN 2024 – Economics and Management: How to Cope With Disrupted Times, Rome, Italy, March 21, 2024, CONFERENCE PROCEEDINGS, published by: Association of Economists and Managers of the Balkans, Belgrade, Serbia; ISBN 978-86-80194-83-7, ISSN 2683-4510, DOI: https://doi.org/10.31410/EMAN.2024

Creative Commons Non Commercial CC BY-NC: This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits non-commercial use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission. 

REFERENCES

Alrowwad, A. A., & Abualoush, S. H. (2020). Innovation and intellectual capital as intermedi­ary variables among transformational leadership, transactional leadership, and organiza­tional performance. Journal of Management Development. 39 (2),196-222.

Aragón-Correa, J. A., García-Morales, V. J., & Cordón-Pozo, E. (2007). Leadership and organ­izational learning’s role on innovation and performance: Lessons from Spain. Industrial marketing management, 36(3), 349-359.

Argyris, C., & Schön, D. (1978). Organizational learning: a theory of action perspective. New York: McGraw-Hill.

Berkun, S. (2007). The Myths of Innovation. Sebastopol. O’Reilly Media Inc.

Boyd, D., & Goldenberg, J. (2015). Inside the box. Kinneret-Zmora-Bitan (Hebrew).

Calantone, R. J., Cavusgil, S. T., & Zhao, Y. (2002). Learning orientation, firm innovation capa­bility, and firm performance. Industrial marketing management, 31(6), 515-524.

Carayannis, E. G., & McDonald, R. S. (2013). Obsessed maniacs and clairvoyant oracles: Em­pirically validated patterns of entrepreneurial behavior. Journal of Innovation and Entre­preneurship, 2(1), 1–24.

Cropley, A. (2018). Bringing creativity down to earth – a long labor lost? In R. J. Sternberg, & J. C. Kaufman (Eds.), The nature of human creativity (pp. 47–62). Cambridge Universi­ty Press.

Darwish, T. K., Zeng, J., Rezaei Zadeh, M., & Haak-Saheem, W. (2020). Organizational Learn­ing of Absorptive Capacity and Innovation: Does Leadership Matter? European Manage­ment Review, 17(1), 83-100. https://doi.org/10.1111/emre.12320

De Bono, E. (1999). Parallel thinking. Israel: Kinneret Publishing House (Translated into He­brew by Shlomit Hendelsman).

De Brabandere, L., & Iny, A. (2015). Thinking in new Boxes. The Boston Consulting Group. Tel Aviv: Matar Books (Translated into Hebrew by Esti Wachtel).

Elior, I. (2000). The challenge of creative thinking. Kiryat Biaylik: Ach Publishing. (Hebrew).

Fisher, C. D. (2003). Why Do Lay People Believe That Satisfaction and Performance Are Cor­related? Possible Source of a Commonsense Theory. Journal of Organizational Behavior 24(6):753 – 777. DOI:10.1002/job.219

Flecher, C. (2010). A Study of Individual Differences and Self-Awareness in the Context of Mul­ti-Source Feedback. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology 73(3):303 – 319. https://doi.org/10.1348/096317900167047

Fraj, E., Matute, J., & Melero, I. (2015). Environmental strategies and organizational competi­tiveness in the hotel industry: The role of learning and innovation as determinants of en­vironmental success. Tourism Management, 46, 30-42.

Garvin, D. (2000). Learning in Action: A Guide to Putting Learning Organization to Work. Boston: Harvard Business Review Press

Hair, J. F., Ringle, C. M., & Sarstedt, M. (2011). PLS-SEM: Indeed a silver bullet. The Journal of Marketing Theory and Practice, 19(2), str. 139-152.

Jiménez-Jiménez, D., & Sanz-Valle, R. (2011). Innovation, organizational learning, and perfor­mance. Journal of Business Research, 64(4), 408-417.

Jovičić Vuković, A., Damnjanović, J., Papić-Blagojević, N., Jošanov-Vrgović, I., & Gagić, S. (2018, September 7). Impact of Leadership on Innovation: Evidence from the Hotel Indus­try. Management: Journal of Sustainable Business and Management Solutions in Emerg­ing Economies, 23(3), 57. https://doi.org/10.7595/management.fon.2018.0008

Kostadinović, I., & Stanković, S. (2021, March 1). Organizational Learning and Innovation in the Tourism Industry as a Basis for Creating Value for Tourists. Economic Themes, 59(1), 153–172. https://doi.org/10.2478/ethemes-2021-0009

Mahdikhani, M., & Yazdani, B. (2020). Transformational leadership and service quality in e-commerce businesses. International Journal of Law and Management, 62(1), 23-46. https://doi.org/10.1108/ijlma-12-2018-0290

Mavondo, F. T., Chimhanzi, J., & Stewart, J. (2005). Learning orientation and market orienta­tion: Relationship with innovation, human resource practices and performance. European journal of marketing, 39(11/12), 1235-1263.

Obeso, M., Hernández-Linares, R., López-Fernández, M. C., & Serrano-Bedia, A. M. (2020). Knowledge management processes and organizational performance: the mediating role of organizational learning. Journal of Knowledge Management, 24(8), 1859-1880. https://doi.org/10.1108/jkm-10-2019-0553

Ping, C., Schellings, G., & Beijaard, D. (2018). Teacher educators’ professional learning: A literature review. Teaching and Teacher Education, 75, 93-104. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2018.06.003 

Pivcevic, S., & Pranicevic, D. G. (2012, January). Innovation Activity in the Hotel Sector – the Case of Croatia. Economic Research-Ekonomska Istraživanja, 25(sup1), 337–363. https://doi.org/10.1080/1331677x.2012.11517568  

Ries, A., & Trout, J. (1981). Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind. New York: McGraw Hill.

Salavou, H. (2005). Do customer and technology orientations influence product innovativeness in SMEs? Some new evidence from Greece. Journal of Marketing Management, 21(3-4), 307-338.

Senge, P. M. (2006). The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization, Doubleday/Currency, New York, NY.

Shah, S. H. A., Sultana, A., Gul, A., Sajjad, S., Aziz, S., Basit, A., & Qadir, A. (2020, November 3). Transformational leadership influence on innovation directly and indirectly through af­fective commitment in hotel industry of Malaysia. International Review of Management and Marketing, 10(6), 22–28. https://doi.org/10.32479/irmm.10761 

Simonceska, L. (2012). The Changes and Innovation as a Factor of Competitiveness of the Tour­ist Offer (The Case of Ohrid). Procedia – Social and Behavioral Sciences, 44, 32–43. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2012.05.002 

Yulianeu, A., Ferdinand, A. T., & Purnomo, R. (2021, December 31). Transformational lead­ership and energizing organizational learning: empirical model for improving commu­nity-based eco-tourism performance in Indonesia. GeoJournal of Tourism and Geosites, 38(4), 1135–1142. https://doi.org/10.30892/gtg.38419-753