{"title":"Cooperative opportunities for strengthening SMEs in dealing with online platforms","authors":"Anselm Balk","doi":"10.1016/j.jcom.2024.100245","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>This study investigates how small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in sectors reliant on online platforms in their value chain cope with dependency challenges and explores the potential of cooperative strategies to alleviate these issues. The research focuses on the Viennese hotel sector. Through qualitative content analysis and inductive category formation, the study finds that many SMEs reluctantly accept the dominance of online travel agencies (OTAs) due to established dependencies. As predicted by the resource dependence approach most SMEs search for ways to reduce these dependencies but tend to be unsure about effective responses. As cooperatives have been used in the past as an instrument to reduce dependencies, their suitability as a means for hotels to collectively build a countermeasure against OTAs was investigated in a subsequent step. The findings indicate that platform cooperatives are not considered a suitable response due to a lack of pioneers and uncertain success prospects. However, cooperative solutions that strengthen individual SMEs without directly challenging OTAs are viewed more favourably. Thus, platform cooperatives are not seen as most appropriate, but rather classical non-digital cooperatives supporting SMEs in a way that strengthen their individual position vis-à-vis online platforms.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":43876,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Co-operative Organization and Management","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.2000,"publicationDate":"2024-06-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2213297X24000168/pdfft?md5=ba9d920ea8f4fdb6a9ad0240eb4613c5&pid=1-s2.0-S2213297X24000168-main.pdf","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Journal of Co-operative Organization and Management","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2213297X24000168","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q3","JCRName":"MANAGEMENT","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
This study investigates how small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in sectors reliant on online platforms in their value chain cope with dependency challenges and explores the potential of cooperative strategies to alleviate these issues. The research focuses on the Viennese hotel sector. Through qualitative content analysis and inductive category formation, the study finds that many SMEs reluctantly accept the dominance of online travel agencies (OTAs) due to established dependencies. As predicted by the resource dependence approach most SMEs search for ways to reduce these dependencies but tend to be unsure about effective responses. As cooperatives have been used in the past as an instrument to reduce dependencies, their suitability as a means for hotels to collectively build a countermeasure against OTAs was investigated in a subsequent step. The findings indicate that platform cooperatives are not considered a suitable response due to a lack of pioneers and uncertain success prospects. However, cooperative solutions that strengthen individual SMEs without directly challenging OTAs are viewed more favourably. Thus, platform cooperatives are not seen as most appropriate, but rather classical non-digital cooperatives supporting SMEs in a way that strengthen their individual position vis-à-vis online platforms.
本研究调查了在价值链中依赖网络平台的行业中的中小型企业(SMEs)如何应对依赖性挑战,并探讨了合作战略缓解这些问题的潜力。研究重点是维也纳的酒店业。通过定性内容分析和归纳分类,研究发现许多中小型企业由于既有的依赖关系而不愿接受在线旅行社(OTA)的主导地位。正如资源依赖性方法所预测的那样,大多数中小型企业都在寻找减少这些依赖性的方法,但往往无法确定有效的应对措施。由于合作社过去曾被用作减少依赖性的工具,因此我们在随后的步骤中对其是否适合作为酒店集体建立针对 OTA 的对策的一种手段进行了调查。研究结果表明,由于缺乏先驱者和不确定的成功前景,平台合作社并不被认为是一种合适的对策。然而,人们更青睐那些在不直接挑战 OTA 的情况下加强单个中小企业的合作解决方案。因此,平台合作社并不被认为是最合适的,相反,传统的非数字合作社支持中小型企业的方式加强了它们相对于在线平台的个体地位。