Resource-based view as a perspective for public tourism management research: evidence from two Brazilian tourism destinations.
| Autor | Massukado-Nakatani, Marcia Shizue |
| Cargo | Report |
Introduction
Official data from World Tourism Organization [UNWTO] in 2005, confirms 806.8 million worldwide displacements originated by tourist activities, corresponding to a sum of US$682.667 billion dollars, disclosing its significant importance and impact on the global economy (UNWTO, 2006). In Brazil, the Ministry of Tourism (2006) informs that, in 2005, 5,358,170 international tourists visited Brazil, pouring 3.2 billion dollars of revenue into the country. Meanwhile, Parana State welcomed an influx of 7,319,475 tourists in 2006, who generated an income of 1,509,000 U.S .dollars. According to official data, 41% of these tourists live in the state, 46% live in other regions of Brazil and 12.7% are foreigners (Secretaria de Estado do Turismo [SETU], 2007). The well-known cities, Curitiba and Foz do IguaCu, are Parana State's most important tourist destinations, in combination receiving 49% of the total number of tourists- respectively 2,201,295 (Viaje Curitiba Instituto Municipal de Turismo, 2007) and 1,434,067 (SETU, 2008) tourists in 2006.
Records from the Secretary of State for Tourism in Parana show that both Curitiba and Foz do IguaCu stand out as the most important cities in the state when it comes to drawing visitors. The capital city has the most popular tourist attraction: the train ride to Paranagua. Because it arouses people's interest for doing business and promoting events, Curitiba is the fourth most frequently visited capital in the country (Ministry of Tourism, 2006).
Foz do IguaCu, which provides many leisure activities catering to various interests, is the second most frequently visited city in the country (Ministry of Tourism, 2006). It has the two main attractions in the state (SETU, 2007): the IguaCu National Park, which surpassed the number of one million tourists, and the Itaipu Hydroelectric Dam with 495,000 visitors that year.
We should also point out that having both municipalities as drawing destinations is a priority, according to the Tourist Regionalization Program [TRP] (Ministry of Tourism, 2008). To the TRP, the destinations that induce regional tourism development are those that have basic infra-structure and good quality attractions, which are characterized as a receptive hub and/or tourist flow distributor, i.e., those which are able to draw and/or distribute a significant number of tourists in and around their area, thereby enhancing the local economy's dynamics (Ministry of Tourism, 2008, p. 4).
Such a positive situation and the presence of the Secretary of State for Tourism in Parana have been great boosters for the target delimitation and the choice of the cities analyzed in this study, since the aim of this policy is to determine in its planning, the strengths of the public tourism structure and the establishment of partnerships for the sector. However, as Sansolo and Da Cruz confirm (1997 as cited in Instituto Brasileiro de Turismo [EMBRATUR], 2004), this development contrasts with the performance on all levels of public tourist management. The authors comment that, in the past, even the federal public administration in Brazil considered tourism as an outstanding activity. These characteristics contributed, according to Lee and Barrett (1994), to the establishment of policies and priorities for the activity and decisions as to what level, type and volume of tourism the country can support, using planning and developmental policies that emphasize economic, social, cultural and environmental factors.
However, the strategic planning toward the tourist sector in Brazil is still at a preliminary stage, mainly related to municipal management. Nowadays, only the Federal Government and some States, including Parana, have established concrete policies intended to create incentives and to structure the activity. Pearce (1998, pp. 458-459) defines the public sector interference in tourism as a multifaceted phenomenon where both private and public sectors have a part to play in this activity. He adds that "the public sector, at all levels--national, state and local--becomes involved in tourism in different ways, either planning, providing infrastructure and stimulating the economy or for economic, social, cultural, environmental and political reasons".
But, without the support and the cooperation of resources from other organizations, the public sector in general will not achieve success in giving tourism the economic priority it deserves. Implementation, therefore, becomes a process of keeping the balance between some objectives and not trying to maximize any one of them separately (Lickorish & Jenkins, 2000).
As noted by Sharma and Vredenburg (1998), the opportunities for developing a corporate competitive advantage diminish in a global world, and the resource-based view of the firm may be a good alternative to increase guidance to the development of competitive strategies, including public policy strategies.
Considering such a context, this study verifies the use of organizational resources and tourist resources by public tourist managers to establish public policies for the sector. The Resourced-Based View [RBV], widely used in Barney's studies (1997), was adopted as a theoretical basis, and proposes a more refined analysis of how these resources are articulated. The assumption is that the use of organizational and tourist resources are not sufficient for the implementation of public tourism policies, so it is necessary to network with other organizations to develop local tourism.
Barney (1997) states that the RBV is apply to determine how organizational resources can affect a firm's performance and, therefore contribute to gain a sustained competitive advantage. Thus, another assumption is that the organizational and tourist resources can be exploited to improve public tourism policies as they can be endowed with the most important strengths of the organization. Therefore, using their own resources in a better way, they may achieve the desired performance, such as becoming a magnet for tourists and external investment and, furthermore benefiting the community and the local tourist trade.
Therefore, the objective of this study is to verify how organizational resources and tourist resources, available to the public sector, are being used for the planning and the management of tourist activities in the cities of Curitiba and Foz do IguaCu, in order to allow local development as a sustainable tourist destination.
As a result of this objective, the following research questions have been defined: a) Which public policy is the city tourist council developing? b) What are the existing tourist resources and how do the local public managers exploit and/or enable the exploitation of these resources? c) What are the organizational resources in the city tourist council and how are these resources used in tourist development? d) How does the network of resources between the city tourist council, the public sector (municipal, state and federal) and local private organizations occur? e) What is the local private sector's perception of public tourism management in these cities?
THE RESOURCE-BASED VIEW--RBV: THE THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK OF ANALYSIS
The theoretical framework of organizational resources presented as Resourced-Based View was in place before the accumulation of stocks in the administrative enclosure--and was mainly incorporated into analyses and conceptualizations of strategy in works of economic theory. Barney (1996) points out that the organization's strongest and weakest analysis and the environmental threats and opportunities (SWOT) are described in some traditions of research, some of which are from economic disciplines, whereas others are not.
Maijoor and Witteloostuijn (1996) understand that the Resourced-Based View is a mixture of theories. Within the strategic field, Mintzberg, Ahlstrand and Lampel (2000) consider Birger Wernerfelt (1984) as the first one to develop the idea of Penrose who, in an awarded article, gave a name to the theory based on resources. However, the credits for the development of the Resourced
Based View were given to Jay Barney who transformed it into a complete theory. Antonio (2001) corroborates this idea when identifying the year 1984 as an important one for the most recent Resourced-Based View, derived from the articles of Wernerfelt (1984) and Rumelt (1984). The publication of these articles was accompanied by a proliferation of many others, which have contributed to the development and consolidation of this theory.
According to Carneiro, Cavalcanti and Silva (1999), it was in the late eighties that diverse works in the Strategic Administration area indicated that the differences existing between the performances of firms in the same industry showed better performance than the differences of performance between industries, meaning that companies' internal factors were making a larger impact in comparison to the external factors, i.e., to the industry's structure.
Similarly, Grant (1991) mentioned that the studies on strategies that focus on the organization's strengths and weaknesses came prior to the development of studies that emphasized the relationship between strategy and the external environment. For the author, the re-appearance of interest in the role of the organization's resources as the basis for organizational strategy was reflected by the dissatisfaction with the balanced and static structure of the industrial economic organization that dominated thinking on contemporary organizational strategy.
The studies that visualized the organization's internal analysis have occurred on a number of different axles. However, Grant (1991) emphasized that the implications of this theory based on resources on strategic administration remained uncertain for two reasons. First, some contributions do not have an integrated structure. Secondly, little effort was made to develop the practical implications of this theory.
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