Interorganizational cooperation within the Northern Norwegian tourism industry : A case study of Innovatiev Opplevelser

Abstract

The adventure tourism industry experienced substantial growth before the Covid-pandemic, and the pandemic has caused significant challenges for the actors within the industry. This thesis investigates how inter-organizational cooperation between existing actors in an existing case: InnOpp, could be beneficially implemented and which benefits and challenges are relevant for the actors. To investigate this, both a preliminary qualitative and a quantitative study are performed. The preliminary study is performed with its basis in existing theory, with the population being the project leadership group of InnOpp, which was used to identify what benefits and challenges would be important for the actors. Likewise, a value chain model was merged from two existing models to better suit the adventure tourism industry's purpose. The findings from the preliminary study confirm some of the existing theories, while they also present ned potential benefits and challenges for the actors. With the findings of the preliminary study in mind, the quantitative study is performed with the population being the linked actors to InnOpp. The findings suggest that inter-organizational cooperation could be implemented within HR Management, Joint Product Development, Technological Development, and Market Activities, and that these should be considered the focus areas for inter-organizational cooperation in the coming years. Further, the findings suggest that Complementary Resources and Joint Product Development are important benefits for the actors and incentives to stay in the cooperation. However, InnOpp needs to work on refocusing their activities to the current trends and work on challenges related to Size to increase their linked actors’ satisfaction. In the future, it will be important for InnOpp to adapt to the trends and regional market while maintaining regular contact between the actors.