Identification of growth factors for small firms: evidence from hotel companies on an island

Abstract

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to mainly investigate what factors drive growth for independent hotel firms on an island. Design/methodology/approach Two steps were followed. First, to identify hotels demonstrated significant growth; 92 independent hotels in North Cyprus were analyzed via a self-report questionnaire. Second, key growth factors were examined in five hotels showing the growth over years among the independent hotels via in-depth, semi-structured interviews, focus group interviews, and observations. Findings The study findings revealed 16 important growth factors for hotels, including active risk taking, education, family history, networks of contacts, other business interests, family investing friends, key employee partners, customer concentration, autonomy, innovativeness, proactiveness, competitive aggressiveness, location, desire to succeed, age of founders, and state support where are strong, weak, and interrelated relationships among these factors. These findings allow factors to be categorized into new groups, namely, strategic and tactical factors. The research findings unveil new factors referred to as “political conflict – pursuing different strategy and opportunities,” importance of second generations affect and entrepreneur’s metacognitive strategies, “informal networking.” Research limitations/implications More research should also be undertaken for entrepreneurs or managers who formulate and implement strategies to enter new markets or to tackle turbulent and/or unstable environments. Practical implications This study reveals that one factor on its own cannot influence the growth of hotels. Rather, successful growth depends on the entrepreneur’s ability to combine all factors in harmony. Originality/value Given that there is limited empirical evidence on the growth of independent hotels on islands, this study made an important attempt to contribute to the entrepreneurship literature in the hospitality management and family business fields via micro-level approaches concerning the factors influencing hotels’ growth on an island. This is one of the first studies presenting and discussing empirical findings on growth factors for small hotels on an island, and brings a new perspective by grouping factors as strategic and tactical factors.

Human resource executives and post-IPO firm growth

“…In answering these calls, we attempt to shed light on the issue of whether HREs matter, by extending the focus of HRE influence to firm growth. As such, we contribute to research which furthers our understanding of factors which contribute to a firm's ability to successfully navigate the organizational changes requisite to realize firm growth (Gancarczyk, 2016;Yazici et al, 2016). Second, we contribute to extant research on HRE effects by exploring moderators of HRE effects on firm growth.…”

A Bibliometric Overview of Tourism Family Business

“…This familiness makes the tourist feel more "at home" than with nonfamily firms, indicating that the fact a company is family owned or run is an essential part of the tourist experience [90]. These characteristics, combined with professionalism in service provision, are appreciated by customers, even as a distinctive brand with an emotional added value [91], which helps to build loyalty towards particular TFB [92]. The relational qualities and social capital of TFB are also a key asset for engaging customers in value co-creation [51].…”

“…However, Altinay et al [73], Giacosa et al [47], and Vrontis et al [84], claim innovation and tradition are not incompatible if companies can balance innovation and respect for the family's values and different generations (see Table 1). In this vein, Yazici et al [92] suggest that successful growth depends on entrepreneurs' ability to combine factors related to their personality and orientation with others linked to strategy and opportunities derived from internal family relationships and external nonfamily relationships. The innovation and differentiation processes at destination level are external factors that can explain entrepreneurship orientation.…”

Family business in tourism: an international systematic review of literature with an emphasis on Latin America

“…Innovation, in its business-oriented sense, is a process through which the company generates new products, processes or markets in order to adapt into the environment (Mathison et al, 2007). In this dimension, the categories are limited and focus on entrepreneurship behavior, forms of innovation and driving factors (Ahmad and Muhammad, 2016;Getz and Petersen, 2005;Halkias et al, 2014;Hallak et al, 2014;Harms et al, 2015;Kale, 2016;Kallmuenzer, 2018;Kallmuenzer and Peters, 2018a, b;Peters and Kallmuenzer, 2015;Peter and Schuckert, 2014;Yazici et al, 2016).…”

“…At the enterprise level, innovation is equally crucial for performance of tourism FB and nontourism FB (Esparza et al, 2009;Hallak et al, 2014;Kallmuenzer and Peters, 2018a, b), but control mechanisms for managing innovativeness are not relevant for tourism FB, since other informal mechanisms such as family governance through codes and ethical norms can help strengthen family ties and guide their behavior. Also, entrepreneurial self-efficacy of the owner is what will define the success of the business (Hallak et al, 2014) and the way they use the strategic-level factors (Yazici et al, 2016).…”