Innovation, uncertainty, and inter-firm shortcut ties in a tourism destination context

Abstract

Efficient inter-firm coproduction in the tourism industry can bear a resemblance to the concept of small-worlds, typically characterized by pockets of local clusters and shortcut ties that connect and decrease path-length between clustered network members. In this paper we analyze survey and inter-firm network data across several winter destinations, finding that innovating firms can reduce path-length, but uncertainty is a necessary catalyst for this process to take place.