İşletmelerde Yeniliklerin Kaynağı Olarak Paydaş Diyalogları: Seyahat Acentaları Üzerine Nitel Bir Araştırma

Bu çalışmanın amacı, günümüzde oldukça önemli olan paydaşdiyaloglarıve yenilik kavramlarınıbir araya getirerek işletmelerin paydaşlarıile kurduklarıdiyalogların yenilik sürecine ne kadar adapte edildiği ile ilgili daha fazla bilgi edinilmesidir. Böylece paydaşdiyaloglarının yenilik sürecinde işletme ve sürdürülebilir yenilik için sağladığıyararlar belirlenmeye çalışılmıştır. Bu amaçla çalışmanın teorik kısmında öncelikle paydaşdiyaloglarıve yenilik kavramlarıüzerinde durularak bu iki kavram arasındaki ilişki ve yapılan çeşitli araştırmaların bulgularına değinilmiştir. Araştırmanın uygulama kısmında ise turizm sektörünün önemli paydaşlarından birisi olan seyahat acentalarının paydaşlarıile diyaloglarının örgütsel yenilik sürecine olan katkısınıortaya koymak için İstanbul’da faaliyet gösteren 15 seyahat acentasıile nitel bir araştırma yürütülmüştür. Araştırmadan elde edilen bulgular bir yandan seyahat acentalarının paydaşlarıile diyaloglarının yapısınıortaya koyarken bir yandan da paydaşdiyaloglarının seyahat acentalarıiçin yeni fikir ve uygulamaların kaynağıolduğunu ortaya koymuştur.

Companies are today faced with increasing demand for detailed information regarding the social and environmental impacts of their business activities. In seeking to improve the level of public trust and understanding of corporate activity, many organizations have participated in stakeholder dialogue Burchell and Cook, 2006 . Dialogue with stakeholders has been studied most prominently from the stakeholder theory approach. However, as Hart and Sharma 2004 recently pointed out, current approaches do not consider ‘‘the potential for engaging stakeholders to understand ‘future change’ or to resolve the radical uncertainty of constantly evolving knowledge. Businesses obtain information they need through stakeholder dialogues. Different actors lead to different kinds of dialogue such as an investor’s dialogue, a consumer’s dialogue or a multi-stakeholder dialogue. Different objectives and strategies lead to different forms of dialogue such as explorative dialogue, learning dialogue, confrontational dialogue or a dialogue which aims at common action. Stückelberger, 2009 . The first step in achieving an effective stakeholder dialogue is to determine who are the stakeholders that their business Starik vd., 1996 . The call for stakeholder communication is nothing new. The bestseller In Search of Excellence, by Tom Peters and Bob Waterman, popularized "management by walking around" as early as 1988, and management approaches too numerous to list have promoted this theme . Literature about stakeholder dialogue has emphasized the value creation of dialogue with stakeholders. A proactive dialogue will provide creativity and innovation in business Flick, 1998; Isaacs, 1993 . In addition dialogue provide information about market conditions and business environment. Dialogue is not in their business but also provides access to information. Later sustainable business policies and activities of this information will be used as input Collins ve Usher, 2004 . Through a participatory approach and stakeholder dialogue barriers to innovation of enterprises will be eliminated. Accordingly, stakeholder dialogue is seen as an opportunity for businesses in their innovation process Zoubi vd., 2006 . Innovation are also important in the tourism sector. Innovation is required to ensure sustainability in the tourism sector Hjalager, 1997 . One of the companies need to innovation is travel agencies. Travel agents have one of the basic product: information. Today, travel agents sell their customers something more than a travel or holiday. Travel agencies sell information and receive feedback about their service Abbey, 1993:545 . Because of their work with the travel agencies are in need of information from stakeholders. Travel agents contribute to their development process new products and services with the information they obtained from stakeholders. Based on these literature, the purpose of this paper was to shed some light on the under-researched issue of linking stakeholder dialogue and innovation in businesses. The review of the literature showed that there is a need for theoretical and empirical research on this important issue. Stakeholder theory proposes a perspective of the firm that essentially incorporates the wider environment, i.e. the firm must learn to understand the needs, expectations and values of groups previously perceived to be external to the company: stakeholders. Within the scope of the work, qualitative research method has been used in collecting the data from travel agents . Therefore, questions draft has been prepared in conformity with the objectives of the work and taking into consideration the respective literature and previous works on this subject. Later, it is requested from the two managers of travel agents to share their opinions regarding the questions. So, at the end of the process, some questions and explanations were rearranged and the questionnaire was finalized. We selected 15 travel agents which has been in İstanbul. The data were collected between 1st February and 30th May 2010 in-depth semi-structured interviews with relevant managers in their office. While the questions were left as open as possible, the interviewees were asked about how the taravel agent was managing the dialogues with stakeholders generally, and in the case of employees, customers, hotels specifically, and how stakeholder dialogues adapt to organizational innovation processes. The findings of this study are as follows: Participants have generally stated stakeholders which directly affect their activities as employees, customers, business hotels and tour operators. Through the findings, travel agents are largely establishing a dialogue at the local level with employees, a dialogue at the all level with hotel business and customers. All travel agencies stated that they had established dialogue with employees frequently. travel agents have expressed rarely or not at all dialogue with tour operators.While travel agents have informal dialogues with employees, tour operator, hotel businesses, airline companies, competitors and non-governmental organizations and associations, they have formal dialogues with customers, universities car rental companies, restaurants, bus companies, embassies and public authorities. Method of establishing a dialogue with employees are regular meetings and a direct dialogue; with hotel businesses, airline companies and restaurants are a direct dialogue, e-mail and web site; with tour operators, competitors and non-governmental organizations and associations are a direct dialogue; with customer are a direct dialogue, e-mail, web site, customer survey. Travel agents stated that they had benefited from the dialogues of employees, customers, hotel businesses and competitors about topics of quality, customer satisfaction, technology, human resources, innovation, leadership. According to the results of the study it appears that stakeholder dialogue is nothing new to the tourism industry, hotel businesses, travel agents and etc. Stakeholder dialogue involves all stakeholder with a oncern in a two-way communication and all types of stakeholders in decision making and implementation efforts in travel agents. Travel agents must understant like any other businesses stakeholder dialogue is generative-discourages blaming for the past and creates a shared future. Because active and constructive dialogue with stakeholders improves how the travel agents formulate and implement their business strategy. This study doesn’t represent all travel agents in Turkey. This study was based on a small sample- 15 travel agents in İstanbul. But, it can serve a path to the potential researchers to test the theoretical approach of this study with qualitative studies in different service and product industries. On the other hand further research should be performed to determine the underlying reasons for many of results of this study