Institutional conformance and tourism performance: an efficiency analysis in developing Pacific Island countries

ABSTRACT

Using a multi-level approach that exploits the synergism between hospitality and tourism, this study examines conceptual and empirical linkages between institutional isomorphism and tourism performance in developing Pacific Island countries. To this end, data envelopment analysis is used to examine how coercive, normative, and mimetic conformity mechanisms are related to optimally efficient tourism performance models. The results provide useful insights for policymakers and development strategists at the macro level by identifying the tourism models that do, and do not, lead to such efficiency. At the micro level, the results can help tourism and hospitality operators move toward more judicious uses of resources in environments characterized by both constrained tourism development potential and constrained rationality. Finally, research on institutional isomorphism in tourism and hospitality is scarce, and thus this study advances an interesting theoretical lens for future research in this area.