东道国酒店联盟网络影响联盟伙伴选择研究——国际酒店经验和能力的调节效应

Empirical Research on the Domestic Alliance Network Impact on Foreign Hotels' Partner Selection——the Moderating Effect of Foreign Hotel's Experience in Host Country and It's Perceived Capability

本文基于社会网络理论集中探讨了东道国酒店联盟网络中两大社会网络位置属性——网络中心性和网络中介性对酒店国际合作伙伴选择的影响过程。实证结果表明,位于当地网络中心位置的酒店比中介位置的酒店更易成为国际酒店的合作伙伴,但该关系受到国际酒店在东道国的市场经验以及国际酒店能力两种因素的调节影响。当国际酒店具有较为丰富的东道国市场经验和较高能力时,更倾向于选择当地中介位置酒店而非中心位置酒店作为其合作伙伴。我国酒店业国内联盟网络的数据支持了相关假设,这对我国酒店在海外建立社会网络和选择东道国合作伙伴都具有重要的启发与借鉴价值。

International alliance partner selection is one of the crucial issue for any multinational hotel groups. In the last decade, a large amount of Sino-foreign joint ventures, contractual and cooperative hotels e- merged. And a prominent tendency shows that large-scale and competitive international renowned hotel groups have attracted a large majority of domestic hotels. Those international hotels have been a very important part of China ho- tel industy. The previous study on international partner selection focus on a series of factors, such as partners＇ attraction, resource complementarity, and parnering experience. Many scholars also explicited the partners network strength and characteristics of the whole alliance network based on social network theory. The existing literature, however, has paid less attention to local partners＇ network positions as an important trait for partner selection, despite the critical roles of network positions in firms ＇ strategy and competitive advantage. It has paid inadequate attention to the actual practice of due diligence process in international partner selection in which multinational enterprises （MNEs） often investigate focal firms＇ network position to comprehensively map the local embeddedness. Based on the theory of Social Network, this study concentrates on the impact of of two basic network position ： network centrality and network brokerage, in international partner selection. Specifically, network centrality acts as a stronger network trait than brokerage in attracting foreign international joint venture partners. However, such a rela- tionship may be moderated by foreign firms＇ local experience and perceived capabilities, it contends that when for- eign firms have a high level of local market experience and perceived capabilities, they may prefer a local broker o- ver a centrally located local firm. Data on the domestic alliance network in China＇ s hotel industry largely support the related hypotheses, which may be an essential reference for China＇ s hotels to build social network and select host partners in their internationalizaion process. Viewing from the practice of China＇ s hotel industry, this paper underlined the alliance network in the host country could act as a reliable source and signal in potential international partner selection. It also sheds light on the actual hotel industry practitioners. Alliance network centrally located and brokerage located hotels could provide het- erogeneity strategic resources to partners. The major contribution of this paper lies in two dimensions. First of all, the study on international alliance part- ner selection viewed from the network position is insufficient, while, the proposed framework augmented the dynamic formation process of international inter-organizational social network, especially the network over international joint ventures. It demonstrated that specific network position revealed stronger correlation with the possibility of interna- tional cooperation networking. Second, the comparative study over the traits of network centrality and brokerage fur- ther advanced the boundary condition of social network theory, this paper analyzed the visibility and comprehension of network positon characterization under divergent opportunity and condition. The interview with a number of top management members from the international chain hotels also supported the findings of this paper. Additionally, this paper also pioneered in the comparative research of network centrality and brokerage. Moderated by market experience in host country and it＇ s perceived capability of the foreign hotels, different mechanism was identified under va- rious boundary.