The role of local and global networking for tourism firms and clusters: The case of Antalya

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Tezin Türü: Doktora

Tezin Yürütüldüğü Kurum: Orta Doğu Teknik Üniversitesi, Fen Bilimleri Enstitüsü, Fen Bilimleri Enstitüsü, Türkiye

Tezin Onay Tarihi: 2008

Öğrenci: HİLAL ERKUŞ ÖZTÜRK

Danışman: AYDA ERAYDIN

Özet:

The aim of this thesis is to explore the role of local and global networking, institutionalization and institutional thickness of tourism firms and clusters in order to explain their contribution to tourism development. Recent development literature emphasizes the crucial role of different level of networks, institutionalizations and clustering in the development of regions. In this respect, this thesis tries to explore the role of networks, new organizational set-ups and clustering by adapting them to tourism case. It is hypothesized that global networks are also important in addition to local networks, and play crucial role in the performance of tourism firms and clusters. On this basis, types and intensity of local & global networks in tourism organizations and clusters, development of associational structure in tourism clusters and firms, and the level of relations between different associations and tourism firms are tried to be examined by focusing on the theoretical framework on development models, networking, institution and cluster based studies. This thesis employs a quantitative method of analysis and social network analysis for identifiying the level of networks of tourism firms&organizations and clusters. In this way, this thesis describes their contribution to local tourism development. Although tourism is somewhat different from other sectors, findings of the case study generally support the claims of the development literature for tourism case.