Collaboration for Innovation in Tourism Organizations: Leadership Support, Innovation Formality, and Communication

Collaboration for innovation is a key contributor to successful innovations in the tourism industry. Research, however, has not fully understood how tourism organizations with less than 10 employees (also known as micro organizations) can foster collaboration for innovation. This study contributes to tourism research by successfully testing the effect of innovation formality, interorganizational communication, and leadership support on collaboration for innovation at destination marketing organizations with less than 10 employees. It was found that leadership support for both innovation and collaboration is the most important driver to collaborate with partners in the innovation process. Interorganizational communication and innovation formality were driven by leadership support but did not have a strong direct effect on collaboration for innovation. This suggests that micro destination marketing organizations need to identify and invest in leadership rather than develop or rely on organizational processes that are useful in large organizations.