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Why organizations join voluntary sustainable tourism associations: Implications for membership and sustainability monitoring systems
Author(s) -
Peters Scott,
Font Xavier,
BonillaPriego Maria Jesus
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
international journal of tourism research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.155
H-Index - 58
eISSN - 1522-1970
pISSN - 1099-2340
DOI - 10.1002/jtr.2338
Subject(s) - disconnection , voluntary association , association (psychology) , normative , sustainability , business , confusion , tourism , turnover , public relations , join (topology) , identity (music) , marketing , psychology , political science , economics , management , law , ecology , psychoanalysis , psychotherapist , biology , physics , mathematics , combinatorics , acoustics
Abstract With the use of institutional theory, we study why organizations join a voluntary sustainable tourism association and how the organization–association dynamics change over time. We find a disconnection between the joining and monitoring motivations for the association and its members that leads to conflicting forces and confusion, resulting in goal misalignment and loss of monitoring data. Voluntary associations need to accommodate for organizations' need of social identity, the desire to learn from each other and the sense of belonging from membership (mimetic forces), with the desire to institutionalize the members to behave in increasingly standardized way (normative and eventually coercive forces).