Effect of Positional Embeddedness on Tour Supplier Integration: Chinese Evidence

Yin Chen, Yong Long and Jianyin Bai
Additional contact information
Yin Chen: School of Economics and Business Administration, Chongqing University, Chongqing 400044, China
Yong Long: School of Economics and Business Administration, Chongqing University, Chongqing 400044, China
Jianyin Bai: School of Economics and Business Administration, Chongqing University, Chongqing 400044, China

Sustainability, 2019, vol. 11, issue 20, 1-21

Abstract: This article identifies the positional attributes of travel agents (TAs) in the extended TA network in Chongqing (China), and further examines the impact of the travel agent’s positional embeddedness (measured by three indicators: degree centrality, structural hole, and closeness centrality) on tour supplier integration (TSI). We applied the random permutations method (node-level) to test theoretical hypotheses based on a sample of 51 travel agents (TAs). It was found that the target travel agent’s positional embeddedness could positively accelerate the sustainable integration of tour suppliers and the travel agent’s structural hole attribute could significantly contribute to the TSI. The results indicated that a TA can strengthen control power by increasing the positional embeddedness to facilitate high efficiency supplier integration through which TAs can encourage the supplier development of sustainability (SDS) practices, and finally to upgrade the tourism supply chain (TSC) sustainability.

Keywords: positional embeddedness; centrality; structural hole; tour supplier integration (TSI); tourism sustainability (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/11/20/5741/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/11/20/5741/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:11:y:2019:i:20:p:5741-:d:277385

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().