Resultados Comparativos de las Categorías vs Metodologías

This study explores relationships between adventure tourism businesses’ knowledge resources and innovation through a multiple case study. Innovation is often

measured quantitatively to get an impression of how innovative a certain industry is and whether the innovative activity is something that changes over time, e.g. in response to different governmental initiatives. This research will have a qualitative approach, trying to capture the processes behind the innovative activity of the businesses. A central part of the research is based on business biographies told by the entrepreneurs, where they highlight significant changes in the history of their business and how these were brought about.

Norwegian cases were initially chosen, but during initial pilot interviews with two adventure tourism entrepreneurs of foreign background (NZ and USA), the importance of social and industrial context became apparent. The two foreign entrepreneurs both underscored that adventure tourism was not yet an industry in Norway. They described a pattern of individual micro businesses scattered over great distances, with little integration with the tourism industry as a whole and no overseeing national bodies to regulate the undertakings. The organizational “thinness” and immature industry described must surely influence knowledge resources and capacity for innovation in the Norwegian adventure tourism industry. Another and related issue that came up in this phase was the lack of bigger adventure tourism businesses in Norway. The idea of exploring size-related knowledge processes is better followed up if there is a certain span in the number of full-time employees. At the time of the case studies there were few bigger actors to choose from in Norway.

A way of dealing with these issues was to include cases from NZ. NZ was chosen because of its reputation as an adventure tourism destination (see e.g. Cloke and Perkins, 2002) while simultaneously being similar in size and population to Norway. Another reason was my own familiarity with NZ, which would make practical arrangements easier than in other countries with a reputation for having a mature adventure tourism industry such as the US, Canada or Costa Rica. With four cases from NZ in addition to four Norwegian cases, two bigger businesses operating year -round and with several employees working full time could be included. It also meant that potential context specific issues related to the national level industry could be discovered.

With cases from two countries, the emphasis of the study was still kept at the micro level. As the research process proceeded, the comparisons at a national level became less central; internal business processes and the knowledge related differences between the individual adventure tourism activities seemed more essential for increasing our understanding of innovation in adventure tourism businesses. With emphasis on the business level, the comparative perspective was therefore downplayed in the research questions; the opportunity was still there to discover potential contextual differences that inflicts on adventure tourism innovation.

Relationships between knowledge resources and innovation will be explored through three different perspectives, reflecting a comprehensive theoretical approach. These concern a) the maturity of the adventure tourism activity in question, b) business knowledge resources and c) business location. The three perspectives can be seen as supplementing each other. The issue of maturity concerns knowledge resources at a collective, industry level, while at the same time indicating the scope of action for the individual business. The perspective of knowledge resources explores internal processes of knowledge development, and how these might affect innovation. The location perspective emphasizes how being embedded in different locations influence knowledge development. By focusing at industry, business and location levels, the aim is to get a rich understanding of how knowledge resources shape innovation in this particular part of the tourism industry. The first perspective suggests that our understanding of innovation and the related knowledge processes taking place in small adventure tourism businesses would benefit by incorporating an evolutionary perspective to entrepreneurship (see e.g. Aldrich, 1999). Knowledge processes and innovation are depending both on where the specific business is at in its life cycle (see e.g. Kotler, 2000), and where the specific activity is at in the development as a commercial activity. A “young” activity has challenges that may require more internally oriented knowledge processes than the more mature commercial activities. Such historical paths may provide a valuable frame for understanding innovation in small tourism businesses. The business biographies of the case studies will contribute to knowledge as to what significant changes are taking place throughout the “life” of an adventure tourism business. Research question 1 relates these findings to the different ages of the adventure tourism activities represented in this study and examines how knowledge development and innovation are shaped by adventure activity maturity: How are knowledge dynamics and innovation in adventure tourism businesses shaped by the prevailing evolutionary conditions for this particular adventure tourism activity?

The second perspective takes its starting point in findings of size-related differences in patterns of innovation (see e.g. Rønningen and Lien, 2014; Jacob, Tinoré, Aguiló, Bravo and Mulet, 2003). The assumption is that bigger businesses will have both better developed internal routines and therefore increased absorptive capacity (Cohen and Levinthal, 1990), and more resource slack for networking and external project work. As little is known about the resources of adventure tourism businesses, it is interesting to see how business size, as measured in number of employees, influences the pattern of innovation.

Four of the cases of this study are micro sized businesses with less than five full time employees, while the other four can be regarded as small or medium-sized,

with more than five full time employees1_{. The assumption of size-related}

differences is examined in research question 2:

How are processes of knowledge development and innovation related to business size and to what degree does lack of knowledge resources act as barriers for innovation in adventure businesses?

Finally, given the combined challenges of knowledge development in businesses often rurally located in a seasonal industry, it is argued that being co-located with other adventure tourism business will provide knowledge benefits. Such co-location may indicate increased potential for collaborations, tougher competition and easier access to valuable knowledge resources.

Half of the cases of this study are located in what is argued to be adventure tourism communities, with several adventure tourism providers located in close geographic proximity. The other half lacks such proximity to other providers. How location affects innovation is examined in research question 3:

How does co-location of businesses offering similar tourism services, leading to increased potential for cooperation and/or competition, influence knowledge resources and innovation?

Taken together the three perspectives may contribute to a) an increased understanding of the knowledge resources of adventure tourism businesses, b) a nuanced understanding of what innovation means in the context of adventure tourism businesses and c) an increased understanding of the relationships between knowledge resources and innovation in adventure tourism businesses.