Title: The relevance of public-private partnerships in coopetition: empirical evidence from the tourism sector

Authors: Marcello M. Mariani; Mika Kylänen

Addresses: Department of Management, University of Bologna, Via Capo di Lucca 34, IT-40126 Bologna, Italy ' Faculty of Tourism and Hospitality, Lahti University of Applied Sciences, P.O. Box 214, FI-15101 Lahti, Finland

Abstract: The formation of coopetition is often triggered by a certain institutional context where the public sector pushes competing co-located companies to cooperate with each other. This situation is particularly important in the tourism sector where relevant public stakeholders support a collaborative attitude and practice among tourism businesses. In this paper, we focus on the role of the public sphere in creating the conditions for the private sector to shift from a constant sum to a variable sum game, wherein public-private partnerships can help private businesses to achieve win-win situations. More specifically, our comparative study shows that public-private relationships are crucial over time in order to strengthen coopetition thus contributing to better development and promotion of a tourism destination and to the improvement of the dialogue inside a business agglomeration.

Keywords: inter-organisational relationships; coopetition; public-private partnerships; PPPs; tourism sector; tourism destination; qualitative study.

DOI: 10.1504/IJBE.2014.058026

International Journal of Business Environment, 2014 Vol.6 No.1, pp.106 - 125

Published online: 21 Jun 2014 *

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