'A Study of Strategic Innovation Practices within the Irish Tourism Industry.'

One dominant theme that continually emerges from national reports is that, in order for small tourism firms to surmount the detrimental effects of loss of competitiveness (caused mainly by globalisation and the changing economic climate) emphasis must be directed at encouraging these companies to adopt a strategic innovation practice and become strategic innovators (The Tourism Policy Review, 2003). However, what makes good strategic practice in the context of innovativeness and thus increasing firm competitiveness is not clearly understood within the literature. In fact, most research has tended to focus on the large organisation and little significant international research activity has focused on strategic innovation practices within the SME and in particular within the small tourism firm. Furthermore, research to date has focused on micro or product-level innovation and ignored the reality that small firms need a firm-level strategic objective; innovativeness, especially considering that “innovations in and of themselves are not necessarily the key to long-term business success” (Sigauw et al 2006: 556). Therefore, this research project examines a new thematic area within the tourism literature – the dynamic inter-relationship between strategic practices and innovativeness within the tourism SME, with an expected outcome of a managerial model (planning and development). This research project, also, makes a unique contribution to a very significant gap in the innovation and business strategy literature, by conceptualizing innovativeness and identifying strategic practices that link effective strategy to enhanced innovativeness. Consequently the main propositions for this research project are:

Propositions 1: Firm level innovativeness is a multidimensional construct consisting of a firm’s proactiveness, exploration, creativity, receptivity, strategic flexibility and risks taking.

Propositions 2: Strategic practices (knowledge leveraging, resource slack, leadership consistency, collaborative capability and market orientation) enhance firm level innovativeness.