Asia Pacific Journal of Tourism Research

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How to create competitive advantage: the

moderate role of organizational learning as a
link between shared value, dynamic capability,
differential strategy, and social capital

Chih-Hsing Liu, Jeou-Shyan Horng, Sheng-Fang Chou, Yung-Chuan Huang &

Angela Yaping Chang

To cite this article: Chih-Hsing Liu, Jeou-Shyan Horng, Sheng-Fang Chou, Yung-Chuan Huang
& Angela Yaping Chang (2018): How to create competitive advantage: the moderate role of
organizational learning as a link between shared value, dynamic capability, differential strategy, and
social capital, Asia Pacific Journal of Tourism Research, DOI: 10.1080/10941665.2018.1492943

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/10941665.2018.1492943

Published online: 03 Jul 2018.

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ASIA PACIFIC JOURNAL OF TOURISM RESEARCH
https://doi.org/10.1080/10941665.2018.1492943

How to create competitive advantage: the moderate role of

organizational learning as a link between shared value, dynamic
capability, differential strategy, and social capital
Chih-Hsing Liua, Jeou-Shyan Horngb, Sheng-Fang Chouc, Yung-Chuan Huangd and
Angela Yaping Change
a
Leisure & Recreation Administration Department, Ming Chuan University, Taipei, Taiwan; bDepartment of Food and Beverage
Management, JinWen University of Science & Technology, New Taipei City, Taiwan; cDepartment of Hospitality Management,
School of Tourism, Ming Chuan University, Taipei, Taiwan; dTourism Department, School of Tourism, Ming Chuan University,
Taipei, Taiwan; eDepartment of Business Administration, Ming Chuan University, Taipei, Taiwan

ABSTRACT KEYWORDS
Based on the organizational strategy and capability perspective, we theorized a serial Competitive advantage;
mediation-moderation analysis that links critical beneficial attributes of dynamic organizational learning;
capabilities, differential strategies, social capital, shared goals, and organizational shared goals; dynamic
learning to creating competitive advantage. Results from a survey of 328 travel capability; differential
strategy; social capital
agencies were analysed to support our hypotheses. We found that travel agencies’
shared goals may influence competitive advantage through the characteristics of
dynamic capability development, differential strategy implications, and social capital
accumulation. We also found that organizational learning is the most critical
attribute for improving the relationships between shared goals, dynamic
capabilities, and social capital to achieve competitive advantage. The implications
of these findings for managerial and theoretical frameworks are also discussed.

Introduction
Owing to rapid changes in the business environment,
internationalization and the rapid development of
information technology, travel agencies and travel ser-
vices face unprecedented challenges (Lin & Kuo, 2018;
Long & Shi, 2017). According to the report and stat-
istics, global travel revenue reaches 118.8 billion, and
over US$50,000 billion of global revenue was gener-
ated in 2017. Notably, the travel agency industry has
followed the economy and enjoyed a remarkable evol-
ution and expansion in Taiwan (currently 3868
agencies), annually generating US$256.71 billion in
sales and comprising 4.84% of Taiwan’s GDP
(Tourism Bureau, 2017). Tseng and Huang (2017)
asserted that major diseases or political issues affect
the willingness of tourists to visit Taiwan. In particular,
political issues and daily visitation quota with strict
regulations have led to a considerable and serious
reduction in the number of Chinese tourists visiting
Taiwan (Cang, Sun, & Li, 2017). Thus, travel agencies,
tourism and hospitality organizations need to find
other effective strategies for survival and growth. Fur-
thermore, from their in-depth interviews with two
well-known Taiwanese travel agencies, Chen and Lee
(2017) found that future tourism organizations
should focus on learning orientation to learn from cus-
tomers, competitors or employees in order to acquire
knowledge resources or new market information. The
above findings of studies on the tourism industry
suggest that organizational learning and strategy
play a crucial role in the travel agency industry. As
further evidence, strong international competition
and the appearance of new sales channels (e.g. over
50 per cent of related travel services were from
online sales) are putting pressure on travel agencies
(Long & Shi, 2017).

CONTACT Chih-Hsing Liu phd20110909@gmail.com Leisure & Recreation Administration Department, Ming Chuan University, 5 De
Ming Rd., Gui Shan District, Taoyuan County 333, Taiwan
© 2018 Asia Pacific Tourism Association
2 C.-H. LIU ET AL.
Due to Taiwan’s small market scale and high com-
petitive density, travel agencies must continue to
upgrade their existing information and learning
capacity to ensure that services and products fit the
market’s needs, thus enhancing added value to custo-
mers(Huang, 2008). For tourism organizations to main-
tain and improve their competitive advantage
currently, the concepts of dynamic capability (Walsh,
Lynch, & Harrington, 2011), business competitive strat-
egy (Håkansson & Snehota, 1989) and social capital
(Zach & Hill, 2017) are widely used to evaluate,
control, and measure business success. Although
numerous tourism and hospitality researchers have
demonstrated the importance of dynamic capability,
business competitive strategy and social capital indivi-
dually, few studies in the hospitality and tourism fields
have integrated the above concepts into the travel
agency industry.
Travel agencies differ from other well-developed
tourism and hospitality organizations in terms of
fast information changes, unpredictable customer
consumption behaviour and needs, organization
updating, political and social issues, and information
management which directly and indirectly influence
organizational performance (e.g. Anuar, Fahmey,
Nasir, & Ahmad, 2017; Long & Shi, 2017). Fraj,
Matute, and Melero (2015) asserted that organiz-
ational learning, along with a competitive environ-
ment and customer behavioural changes, have led
organizations to adjust their attitude to satisfy custo-
mer requirements, to be proactive in organization
innovation and obtain competitive advantages.
Although organizational learning does not always
guarantee business success because of complex
industry environment, competitive environment
awareness and scanning help an organization con-
tinuously update its complementary skills and compe-
tencies to fit the requirements of a competitive
environment (Camisón, Forés, & Boronat-Navarro,
2017). In other words, to keep up with new compe-
tition phenomena in which SMEs tourism organization
learn how to survive and grow in a dynamic environ-
ment, travel agencies must adopt learning orientation
to assist other business strategies or develop a
dynamic capability in response to changing customer
needs and a dynamic environment. However, until
now, these have been absent from tourism and hospi-
tality studies, which have not empirically examined
how organizational learning may strengthen or
influence the subsequent performance of travel
agencies.
To fill this research gap and provide recommen-
dations for travel agency managers in establishing
their competitive advantage through identifying the
critical attributes of core competency, this paper pro-
poses a mediation-moderation integrated model to
describe the mediation mechanism of dynamic capa-
bility, differential strategy and social capital, and
examines organizational learning interactions in a
travel agency’s competitive environment. Previous
studies have shown that traditional travel agencies
maintain their competitive advantage through
improving customer perceptions of service quality
(Caro & García, 2008). This study extends previous
ones and uses a more comprehensive and macro per-
spective to demonstrate the industry’s competitive
model. Furthermore, many studies examining travel
agencies have focused only on mediation effects
(Andreu, Aldás, Bigné, & Mattila, 2010; Bosque,
Martín, & Collado, 2006; Millan & Esteban, 2004) or
moderation strength (Kuo, Chang, Cheng, & Lai,
2013), and few used a mediation-moderation model
to observe other possible phenomena. Finally, value
co-creation (Cabiddu, Lui, & Piccoli, 2013), dynamic
capability(Walsh et al., 2011), business competitive
strategy (Håkansson & Snehota, 1989), and social
capital (Zach & Hill, 2017) are widely recognized as
critical attributes in determining tourism and hospital-
ity success. However, until now, no study has gathered
these attributes together to discuss how they
influence each other within an integrated model.
Therefore, this study, based on a system-integrated
model, argues that a travel agency’s competitive
advantage depends on the degree to which it devel-
ops dynamic capability, uses differential strategy
appropriately, acquires social accumulation, and
increases organizational learning orientation.
Figure 1 presents the proposed integrated model
and predicted proposition of this study. In discovering
the recommended hypothetical framework, we exam-
ined and empirically tested indirect and interactive
relationships to capture the potentially more
complex influences of the competitive advantage
analysis process on travel agencies. We examined pre-
vious studies and the interrelationships among shared
goals, dynamic capability, differential strategy, social
capital, and competitive advantage. We evaluated
these interrelationships in the context of simul-
taneously considering the potential mediating role
of dynamic capability, differential strategy, social
capital, and competitive advantage in the linkage
interaction effects of organizational learning

H1
Dynamic
Capability
H4a
Shared
Goals
H4b
Figure 1. Research framework – hypothesized model.
between those mediating roles and competitive com-
petence development in creating superior performance.
Theoretical background and hypothesis
development
Competitive advantage
According to Peteraf (1993), “Competitive advantage
refers to organizational competencies and resources
which are distinctive or superior relative to those of
rivals, and matched appropriately to environmental
opportunities” (Peteraf, 1993, p. 179). However, organ-
izational competencies and resource development
require time and are difficult to imitate (Chung-
Herrera et al., 2003). Effective competency develop-
ment requires subtle preparation and the organiz-
ational investment of scarce resources, extensive
network connections, and a systematically arranged
educational training programme for employees (Kay
& Russette, 2000). In relation to the tourism industry
and related organizations, although fast economic
growth and internationalization brings great develop-
ment opportunities for travel agencies, they are also
accompanied by threats and competition from dom-
estic and international tourism and hospitality organ-
izations management. Recently, although increased
attention has been paid to the creation of organiz-
ational values and to the critical attributes of organiz-
ations, the current literature still lacks a coherent
theory to explain an organization’s competitive advan-
tage (Nahapiet & Ghoshal, 1998, p. 242). Furthermore,
travel agencies frequently encounter new problems,
ASIA PACIFIC JOURNAL OF TOURISM RESEARCH 3
H2
Differential
Strategy
H4c
H4d
Organization Competitive
Learning Advantage
H4e
Social
Capital
H3
unpredictable customer requirements and environ-
mental uncertainties. Organizational learning is the
main factor in developing invisible internal and exter-
nal capabilities, which drive major values in improving
customer relationships and professional skills and
provide a competitive edge to the travel agency
industry (Bosque et al., 2006; Caro & García, 2008).
Thus, travel agencies in Taiwan may emphasize the
utilization of learning mechanisms to effectively
accumulate invisible capability, address emergent pro-
blems, obtain new opportunities, and overcome chal-
lenges (Chen & Lee, 2017).
The existing literature suggests that organizational
competitive advantage may simply come from
dynamic capability, differential strategy, and social
capital. As demonstrated by Roy, Amar, and Mandal
(2016), dynamic capability helps tourism organizations
acquire variable, renewable, inimitable and non-sub-
stitutable resources. In addition, product and service
differentiation has been widely recognized as
effective business competitive strategies for tourism
organizations to isolate themselves from the stress
created by competitors and thus obtain a competitive
advantage (Becerra, Santaló, & Silva, 2013). Further-
more, social capital enhances an organization’s inno-
vation capability in response to customer needs and
a changing tourism environment (Liu, 2017). With
those critical attributes helping to create organiz-
ational competitive advantage, managers can obtain
new information and the necessary resources to
meet potential customers’ needs (Engström et al.,
2003). Meanwhile, given the high government invol-
vement and customer rights protection of the
4 C.-H. LIU ET AL.
tourism industry’s environmental mechanisms in
emerging economies such as Taiwan, managers
must develop an invisible competency from custo-
mers, employees, and competitors who can assist
them in identifying market opportunities (Chen, Kerr,
Tsang, & Sung, 2015; Chuang, Chen, & Lin, 2016). Fur-
thermore, from an organizational learning perspec-
tive, scholars in the hospitality and tourism
organizational learning field emphasize utilizing exist-
ing knowledge and skills, balancing innovation and
identifying new market opportunities (Brookes &
Altinay, 2017; Shamim, Cang, & Yu, 2017). In particular,
beginning with March’s (1991) seminal work, the con-
cepts of exploration and exploitation have been
widely used to describe the different learning orien-
tations and organizational innovation behaviours
(Choi & Chandler, 2015, p. 140). These behaviours
can help travel agencies to leverage their invisible
competency and to more successfully develop a
market strategy to improve their overall performance
and maintain a competitive advantage.
Mediation effect between shared goals and
competitive advantage
Shared goals directly contribute to not only promoting
mutual understanding but also exchanging knowl-
edge under social pressure within the organization
in a dynamic environment (Chow & Chan, 2008). As
a consequence, shared goals foster supportive cli-
mates, increase employee confidence and capabilities
and are conducive to the implementation of new
manufacturing processes that lead employees to
undertake new challenges (Björkman, Stahl, & Vaara,
2007). From another perspective, dynamic capability
refers to a firm’s ability to integrate, generate, and
reorganize internal and external resources to create
new products/services to capture new market oppor-
tunities, develop new capabilities and respond to a
changing industry environment (Nieves & Haller,
2014). An organization’s dynamic capabilities are
developed according to whether organizational
members share values or goals embedded in the
organizational structure (Jones, Jimmieson, &
Griffiths, 2005). Dangelico, Pujari, and Pontrandolfo
(2017) also assert that dynamic capabilities should
be discussed in association with business strategy-
making and that they enable organizational adaption
of the business strategies necessary for sustained
business performance. Therefore, dynamic capabilities
need organizational members to share values, which
are usually embedded in organizational processes
and routines that allow managers to adjust their
market strategy to differentiate their firm, to fit chan-
ging market requirements, to reconfigure basic firm
resources, enable conversion and change, and even-
tually achieve an edge over competitors (Pavlou & El
Sawy, 2011).
Hypothesis 1. Dynamic capability mediates the positive
effect between shared goals and a differential business
strategy.
A differential business strategy refers to a firm’s
successful implementation and integration of
different resources and skills, organizational engage-
ments, control processes and innovative systems to
acquire necessary resources and capability improve-
ments (Spanos & Lioukas, 2001, p. 910). According to
Jiang et al. (2015), dynamic capabilities allow
resources to be created, modified, and recombined
in the face of a dynamic market or to cater to decision
makers, which leads to differential product/service
development (Pisano, 1994). According to Porter
(1991), because of expectations and information
asymmetries, industries are imperfectly competitive;
thus, the strategic development of resource hetero-
geneity enables a firm to establish a competitive
advantage over its rivals. Having attained such
resource heterogeneity or the successfully
implemented a differential business strategy, a firm
can exercise market power (Linton & Kask, 2017).
From a dynamic capability perspective, creating a
competitive advantage over competitors depends on
having a differential business strategy (e.g. innovative
differences and market differences), the sustainability
of which is defined by those heterogenetic resources
and capabilities (Spanos & Lioukas, 2001). Instead,
differential business strategies are those that help
firms to build entry barriers and secure a market repu-
tation within a firm’s capability, with their non-imita-
ble and non-substitutable resources hinging on
specific performance and competitive advantage
(Mani & Nandkumar, 2016). Therefore, the proposed
hypothesis is as follows:
Hypothesis 2. Differential business strategy mediates the
positive effect between dynamic capability and competi-
tive advantage.
Some studies have suggested that shared values
and goals among organizational members, in the
form of high levels of mutual trust that facilitates

dialogue and encourages mutual gains, diminish the
possibility of opportunism and reduce the need to
monitor costly processes (Jiang & Ritchie, 2017),
which in turn increases the effectiveness of social
capital accumulation (Czernek & Czakon, 2016). Naha-
piet and Ghoshal (1998, p. 243) asserted that social
capital refers to members embedded within networks,
who constitute a valuable network resource, such as
trust, collective action and a sense of collectively
owned capital. According to Tsai (2000), social
capital is an important factor that increases one’s
capacity to form new associations, in addition to pro-
viding a foundation of internal resources and knowl-
edge integration and facilitating a tacit knowledge
transfer that leads to competitive advantage.
Altogether, shared goals are likely to have a stronger
influence on a travel agency’s competitive advantage
through social capital. Therefore, the proposed
hypothesis is as follows:
Hypothesis 3. Social capital mediates the positive effect
between shared goals and competitive advantage.
Moderating effect of organizational learning
of critical linkage of competitive advantage
Organizational learning refers to learning from the
internal and external environment, which mainly
focuses on improving service or product processes,
updating existing skills, and adding experience to
the firm (Li, Chen, Liu, & Peng, 2014). Brookes and
Altinay (2017), in their qualitative case study of the
tourism and hospitality industry, using a U.S. franchi-
sor and a European master franchisee, found that
organizational learning provided opportunities to
search for, recognize, and identify unfamiliar activities,
which in turn provided greater value for the hotel and
allowed it to quickly respond to heterogeneous
environments. In the tourism industry’s extremely
intense competition, organizational learning enables
hotels to adapt to risk and encourages flexibility and
innovation so they might capture new opportunities
under conditions of uncertainty. In contrast, organiz-
ational learning “creates reliability in experience
through refinement, routinization, production, and
implementation of knowledge” (Holmqvist, 2004,
p. 71), which means putting the application of familiar
knowledge and skills into firm practice. Thus, organiz-
ational learning is characterized by “deepening,
refining, selecting, and executing existing knowledge
in expanding or enriching current customer value”
ASIA PACIFIC JOURNAL OF TOURISM RESEARCH 5
and focuses on an “in-depth search of knowledge
domains to pursue best solutions or alternative ways
of developing competencies, technologies and
improving how they are used” (Kang, Morris, & Snell,
2007, p. 237). By integrating the above literature into
organizational learning, its role becomes particularly
crucial for the tourism industry.
Theoretically, regarding the conceptualization of
organizational learning’s capacity to help tourism
organizations move towards strategic business goals,
few studies have conducted evaluations of organiz-
ational learning activities to identify and codify the
desired outcomes (Teare & Rayner, 2002). The
present study argues that organizational learning
can simultaneously act as a moderator in the
process of capturing opportunities while also facilitat-
ing a travel agency’s competitive advantage. Lee
(2001) asserted that organizational learning improves
interorganizational relationships to achieve shared
goals, which helps develop the dynamic capabilities
to properly adapt, assimilate, and integrate resources
to satisfy customer requirements. In particular, learn-
ing can enhance organizational effectiveness in
terms of the variation, selection, and transfer of
useful resources into reconfigured core competencies
and a dynamic capability to improve the quality of
business decision-making or problem-solving activi-
ties (Wamba et al., 2017). In the specific case of the
tourism industry, organizational learning improves
the application of business strategies in terms of
cost reduction and an increase in differentiation
levels from competitors, which in turn improves
one’s competitive advantage (Molina-Azorín, Tarí,
Pereira-Moliner, López-Gamero, & Pertusa-Ortega,
2015).
Nevertheless, previous studies have also empha-
sized a number of benefits to implementing organiz-
ational learning in this sector; these benefits that will
increase a firm’s successful social capital accumulation
and may even help travel agencies in obtaining posi-
tive results and maintaining their competitive advan-
tage. Through organizational learning, actors may
increase close social interactions to share new infor-
mation and knowledge, and create a common point
of view (Tsai & Ghoshal, 1998). Hence, organizational
learning not only increases close interactions to
share common points of view but is also useful for
social capital development (Tsai, 2000). As for the
current unsolved problems of incorporating and inte-
grating social capital and organizational learning per-
spectives (Li et al., 2014), we argue that organizational
6 C.-H. LIU ET AL.

learning can effectively capture new opportunities, survey participants invited; (3) four colleagues were
discover potential value, and create competitive asked to check the questionnaire when the first draft
advantages. Furthermore, by adopting the mechanism was completed to avoid misleading items and to
of organizational learning, travel agencies can better clarify each sentence of the survey; (4) six well-
understand the specific requirements of current trained research assistants were recruited to help us
employees, customers, competitors and suppliers, in data collection and connecting to participants;
which can also improve one’s current internal and and (5) of the 400 questionnaires sent out, 344 were
external business capability in competitive advantage returned, and after deleting missing data and incom-
creation. Therefore, the proposed hypothesis is as plete items, 328 were useable and were thus used in
follows: our analyses. The participants’ demographic infor-
mation is shown in Table 1, and the profile of travel
Hypothesis 4a. Organizational learning moderates the
positive interactive effect of shared goals and dynamic
agency managers is as follows: 123 managers were
capability. male (37.50%) and 205 managers were female
(62.50%); the ages of participants were from 21 to 30
Hypothesis 4b. Organizational learning moderates the (48;14.58%), 31 to 40 (64;19.44%), 41 to 50
positive interactive effect of shared goals and social
capital.
(106;32.29%), and above 51 (110;33.68%); their
average organizational tenure was 23.53 years; and a
Hypothesis 4c. Organizational learning moderates the manager’s average work experience was 3.59 years.
positive interactive effect of dynamic capability and
differential strategy.
Measurement
Hypothesis 4d. Organizational learning moderates the
positive interactive effect of differential strategy and Dynamic capability was based on definitions and
competitive advantage.
measures modified in four items by Chen et al.
Hypothesis 4e. Organizational learning moderates the (2015). Competitive advantage was then measured
positive interactive effect of social capital and competi- using three items by Wu and Chen (2012) to reflect
tive advantage. travel agencies’ competitiveness compared with
other competitors. Adapting Das and Joshi (2007),
differentiation competitive strategy was measured
Methods using two items to portray travel agency managers’
perceptions of brand identification, introducing
Data and sample
more products and offering newer products and ser-
Data used in this study were collected from travel vices than the competition. Extending prior research
agencies from various regions located in the north, (Sinkula, Baker, & Noordewier, 1997) and keeping
south, and middle parts of Taiwan. These organiz- managers in mind, organizational learning was
ations include different categories of operation: con- measured using three items to describe how travel
solidated travel agency (e.g. can run the domestic agency learning may be a key to organizational
and foreign tourism markets), Class A travel agency improvement and survival and to gaining a
(e.g. can run the foreign tourism market), and Class
B travel agency (e.g. can only run the domestic Table 1. Profile of the travel agency managers.
tourism market) (Tsai, 2017). Within each travel Items Number Percentage
agency, the dynamic environment and the levels of Gender
✓Male 123 37.50
changeable customer requirements were very ✓Female 205 62.50
similar, especially political issues that placed those Age
travel agencies into business operation difficulties. In ✓21–30 48 14.58
✓31–40 64 19.44
our study, we used several steps to collect and ✓41–50 106 32.29
design a questionnaire: (1) comprehensive literature ✓Above 51 110 33.69
review with competitive advantage, business strategy, Lever of education
✓Senior high school or below 34 10.26
social capital, organizational learning, organization ✓University 270 82.32
capability and related studies; (2) periodical meetings ✓MBA or above 24 7.32
with research team members to discuss the contents Average organizational tenure 23.53 years
Average work experience 3.59 years
of measured items and data collecting strategy, with
 ASIA PACIFIC JOURNAL OF TOURISM RESEARCH 7

competitive advantage different from that of other
travel agencies. Shared goals were measured using
three items by Chow and Chan (2008), whereby organ-
izational members agreed with or shared the same
ambitions, collective goals, mission and vision at
work. Adapting concepts from Chow and Chan
(2008), social capital was measured using two items
to describe the interrelationships among organiz-
ational members. The values of mean, standard devi-
ation (SD), factor loadings, composite reliability (CR),
average variance extracted (AVE), along with the
detailed specific measurements of these constructs,
can be found in Table 2.
For measuring the six-construct validity used in this
study, a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was used to
examine the main dimensions (e.g. shared goals,
dynamic capability, differential strategy, organiz-
ational learning, social capital, and competitive
advantage). The measurement index is as follows: a
chi-square (χ 2) of 198.275, a goodness-of-fit index
(GFI) of 0.926, an adjusted goodness-of-fit index
(AGFI) of 0.891, an incremental fit index (IFI) of 0.958,
a comparative fit index (CFI) of 0.957, and a root
mean square error of approximation (RMSEA) of
0.056. The indices (i.e. AGFI, GFI, IFI, and CFI estimates)
were close or exceeded the threshold of the rec-
ommended values of 0.90, which confirmed that the
constructs used in this study were above the accepted
level (Gazzoli, Hancer, & Park, 2010).
Control variables
The study includes several control variables that could
potentially influence the relationships between the
dependent variable and the independent variables.
First, managerial gender is likely to influence group
interactions, employee behaviour, decision-making
quality, information-sharing processes, and organiz-
ational performance (Schwab, Werbel, Hofmann, &
Henriques, 2016). Second, manager age could recog-
nize a contingent manner of organizational perform-
ance, younger leaders are proposed to have less
extensive experience and fewer prototypical charac-
teristics, which may result in a lower status than
older leaders (Buengeler, Homan, & Voelpel, 2016).
Third, individual education levels were recognized as
potential proxy for the influence of knowledge
management (e.g. knowledge sharing, knowledge
integration, knowledge gathering, knowledge estab-
lishment, knowledge diffusion, and knowledge appli-
cation), the development of innovation capacity
among organizations, and the ability to contribute to
the value development and success of organizations
(Masa’deh, Shannak, Maqableh, & Tarhini, 2017).

Table 2. Mean, standard deviation (SD), factor loadings, composite reliability (CR), and average variance extracted (AVE).
Factor
Measure items Mean S.D. loading CR AVE
1. Competitive advantage
• Our products or service offer unique benefits, as opposed to our competitors. 5.295 1.072 .703
• Our products or service have superior quality, as opposed to our competitors. 5.704 .933 .772 .518 .762
• Our products or service are more advanced than those in the same market. 5.565 .996 .680
2. Differential strategy
• My travel agency introduces more products and services than its major competitors. 5.302 .964 .757
.597 .748
• My travel agency introduces products and services to the market faster than the competition. 5.718 1.019 .788
3. Dynamic capability
• We are aware of our customers’ needs. 5.638 .884 .761
• We are capable of integrating acquired knowledge in developing new services. 5.635 .938 .593
.503 .801
• We are capable of quickly responding to our competitors’ moves. 5.211 1.138 .743
• We are capable of adopting new knowledge and approaches to develop new services. 5.520 .918 .728
4. Social capital
• In general, I am very close to my organizational members. 5.809 .926 .898
.803 .891
• I know my organizational members will always try and help me out if I get into difficulties. 5.892 .870 .894
5. Shared goals
• My organizational members and I always agree on what is important at work. 5.791 .901 .782
• My organizational members and I always share the same ambitions and vision at work. 5.593 .958 .653
.571 .798
• My organizational members and I are always enthusiastic about pursuing the collective goals 5.767 .886 .821
and missions of the whole organization.
6. Organizational learning
• Managers feel that our firm’s willingness to learn is the key to our competitive advantage, 5.593 1.004 .633
which differs from other travel agencies.
.500 .749
• The basic values of the travel agency include learning as a key to organizational improvement. 5.524 .940 .703
• Learning is seen as necessary to travel agency survival. 5.604 1.023 .778
8 C.-H. LIU ET AL.

Fourth and finally, Wei, Samiee, and Lee (2014)
asserted that the history of a firm’s foundation offers
important attributes that determine an organization’s
cultural formation, not only influencing employee
behaviour but also affecting firms’ strategy develop-
ment process and performance in emerging markets.
Because the above variables could potentially have a
significant relationship with competitive advantage,
and considering our participants, we include these
variables in the hierarchical regression analyses used
to test the proposed hypotheses.
Common-method bias
The current study adopted several steps to detect and
avoid the common method bias. First, Conway and
Lance (2010) found support for multiple sources to
create the impression of seriously fair, unbiased, and
accurate measures of self-ratings’ actual performance.
In this study, we collected data from (1) various
regions located in the north, south, and middle parts
of the Taiwan and (2) various categories of travel
agencies, such as Consolidated travel agency, Class A
travel agency, and Class B travel agency. Second,
Harman’s single-factor was performed for the poten-
tial for common method bias (Harman, 1967). Third,
as confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) shows good
multi-variable performance ratings (χ 2 = 198.275, GFI
= 0.926, AGFI = 0.891, IFI = 0.958, CFI = 0.957, and
RMSEA = 0.056), similar single-factor procedures were
performed using AMOS 18.0 software, and results
show poor CFA results (χ 2 = 880.763, GFI = 0.692, AGFI
= 0.607, IFI = 0.656, CFI = 0.654, and RMSEA = 0.149).
Integrated from the above perspective, such evidence
would be interpreted as representing that the presence
of common-method biases could be minimized.
Results
Table 3 presents the descriptive statistics of means,
standard deviations, correlation matrix and Variance
Inflation Factor (VIF), alpha, correlations of the
measure variables. As Table 3 shows that some of
the variables represent a high correlation, a multicolli-
nearity test should be performed. The Variance
Inflation Factor (VIF) was used to test the correlation
between the dependent and independent variables;
the VIF values were between 1.41 and 2.29, indicating
no collinearity among variables. Furthermore, the
minimum value of the Cronbach alpha measure is
.711, above suggested value of .7 (McGladdery &
Lubbe, 2017), thus indicating an acceptable level of
internal consistency and reliability.
The results of the chi-square test (χ 2) for direct and
indirect effects in the hypothesized model were sig-
nificant at p < .001, as shown in Figure 2. Generally, a
good-fit model achieves the accepted level (χ 2 =
195.285; IFI = .935, CFI = .935, GFI = .911, RMSEA
= .077). Table 3 and Table 4 present the estimated
moderate effects. To test the predicted mediation
proposition, bootstrapping and Monte Carlo
methods were widely applied to estimate standard
errors (Lee et al., 2017), fit the statistical bias estimate,
and obtain more accurate on Type I error rates under
missing at random (MAR) missing data (Enders &
Bandalos, 2001). An advantage of using bootstrapping
and Monte Carlo methods was to preserve the non-
normal data characteristics for parameter values
(Pattusamy & Jacob, 2017), to avoid overestimating
chi-square values or underestimating CFI and standard
errors (La Grow, Yeung, Towers, Alpass, & Stephens,
2011) and to remedy the bias in the statistical model
fit (Enders, 2005); thus, these methods serve as the
best way to fit the data for a structural equation
model (SEM) (Hair, Black, Babin, & Anderson, 2009;
Kim & Millsap, 2014). Thus, this study followed
Preacher, Zyphur, and Zhang’s (2010) suggestion
and used a parametric bootstrap procedure with
20,000 Monte Carlo replications to examine Hypoth-
eses 1, 2, and 3. As shown in Figure 1, shared goals
positively related to dynamic capability (β = .639,
p < .001), and dynamic capability related positively

Table 3. Means, standard deviations, and correlations among variables.

95% Conf.
Variables Mean S.D. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. VIF interval
1. Competitive advantage 5.521 .823 (.760) .331 .471 .227 .217 .099 −.208 .089
2. Differential Strategy 5.427 .755 .575 (.753) .372 .177 .141 .221 2.29 .141 .375
3. Dynamic capability 5.501 .764 .686 .610 (.790) .260 .248 .155 2.12 .381 .621
4. Social capital 5.861 .750 .476 .421 .510 (.872) .491 .158 1.91 −.033 .233
5. Shared goals 5.717 .771 .466 .376 .498 .701 (.795) .053 1.79 −.028 .221
6. Organization learning 5.574 .802 .314 .470 .394 .398 .231 (.711) 1.41 −.136 .058
Note: N = 328 Travel agency managers. Correlations are shown below the diagonal, squared correlations above the diagonal, and Alpha on the
diagonal.

with differential strategy (β = .863, p < .001). Bootstrap-
ping outcomes displayed significant positive indirect
effects of shared goals on differential strategy
through dynamic capability (β = .551, p < .001). Thus,
Hypothesis 1 was supported.
Hypothesis 2 predicts that differential strategy
mediates the relationship between dynamic capability
and competitive advantage. To investigate the
mediation effect, this study evaluates the direct, indir-
ect, and total effects among variables, including the
prediction paths. Figure 2 shows that the direct
effects of differential strategy positively related to
competitive advantage (β = .825, p < .001), and the
direct effects of dynamic capability positively related
to competitive advantage through differential strat-
egy (β = .712, p < .001), which constitutes a substantial
indirect effect and support Hypothesis 2. Specifically,
the results also indicated that the indirect effect of
shared goals on competitive advantage through
social capital was significant and positive (standar-
dized indirect effect = .119). Therefore, Hypothesis 3
was supported.
Table 4 presents the results of the moderated
Hypothesis 4 of testing using a hierarchical regression
approach. Hypothesis 4a states that organizational
learning moderates the relationship between shared
goals and dynamic capability. Model 1 included
control variables and independent variables of organ-
izational learning (OL) and shared goals (SG). Model
2 revealed an interaction term on the OL*SG. As
shown in Model 2, the interaction term on the
OL*SG is positive and significant to dynamic capability
(β = .123, p < .05), confirming the internal fit of
Hypothesis 4a. Consistent with this prediction, the
***
. 551
Dynamic
Capability
***
.639
* .070
.123
Shared
Goals
.118
**
.766
***
Figure 2. Research framework – hypothesized model results.
ASIA PACIFIC JOURNAL OF TOURISM RESEARCH 9
results of Model 2 showed that organizational learning
and shared-goals relationship were stronger for a
travel agency in improving dynamic capability when
learning intention was high, compared with a low
learning intention (see Figure 3).
This study also found significant interaction
between organizational learning (OL) and shared
goals (SG) to social capital. Model 3 included control
variables and independent variables, and Model 4
shows that OL*SG is positive and significant to social
capital (β = .118, p < .05), with the predicted pattern
and direction of Hypothesis 4b. The pattern of the
results in Figure 4 shows that organizational learning
and shared-goals relationship were stronger for a
travel agency’s social capital development in a high
organizational learning orientation than in a low one.
Table 5 shows that results of Hypotheses 4c
through 4e predicted that organizational learning
moderates the positive interactive effect of (c)
dynamic capability and differential strategy, (d) differ-
ential strategy and competitive advantage, and (e)
social capital and competitive advantage. The base
model, as shown in Models 5, 7, and 9, including all
of the main effects, indicates that dynamic capability
(DC) and organizational learning (OL) had a positive
significant main effect on differential strategy in
Model 5 (DC: β = .487, p < .001; OL: β = .252, p < .001).
Furthermore, the differential strategy (DS) shows a
positive significant effect on competitive advantage
in Model 7 (β = .568, p < .05) and Model 9 (β = .432,
p < .05). When considering moderate effects, this
study found no significant results for Hypotheses
4c’s prediction that organizational learning moderates
the relationships between dynamic capability and
***
.712
***
.863 Differential
Strategy
***
.825
.006
Organization Competitive
Learning Advantage
***
.187
Social .156**
Capital
*
.119
10 C.-H. LIU ET AL.

Table 4. Interaction of organizational learning with links between shared value, dynamic capability, and social capital.
Dependent variable
Dynamic capability Social capital
Independent variable Model 1 Model 2 Model 3 Model 4
Control variables β t β t β t β t
Gender .033 0.43 .034 0.45 −.055 −0.86 −.057 −0.90
Age
21–30 −.898 −1.43 −.800 −1.28 −.421 −0.81 −.515 −1.01
31–40 −.931 −1.48 −.814 −1.30 −.398 −0.77 −.511 −1.00
41–50 −.796 −1.28 −.706 −1.14 −.348 −0.68 −.434 −0.85
Above 51 −.699 −1.12 −.603 −0.97 −.314 −0.61 −.407 −0.80
Level of education
University .562** 3.15 .521** 2.93 −.143 −0.98 .183 1.25
MBA or above .271 1.89 .253 −1.77 −.204 −1.73 .222 1.90
History of foundation −.004 −1.66 −.004 −1.72 −.000 −0.16 −.000 −0.11
Independent variables
Organization learning (OL) .249*** 5.17 −.460 −1.51 .228*** 5.75 .911*** 3.65
Shared goals (SG) .416*** 8.25 −.270 −0.92 .618*** 14.90 1.279*** 5.29
Interaction effects
OL*SG .123* 2.36 .118* 2.77
Model fit
R2 .372 .385 .560 .572
R2Adj .350 .360 .544 .554
F-value 16.47*** 15.73*** 35.27*** 33.53***
*P < .05; **P < .01; ***P < .001.

differential strategy in Model 6 (β = .070, no signifi-
cant), and Hypotheses 4d’s prediction that organiz-
ational learning moderates the relationships
between differential strategy and competitive advan-
tage in Model 8 (β = .006, no significant). However,
the OL*DS to competitive advantage was significant
in Model 10 (β = .187, p < .001), which confirmed our
prediction; the pattern of the interaction effects
of OL*DS to competitive advantage is shown in
Figure 5. That is, in the social capital accumulation
process, a travel agency with high levels of organiz-
ational learning engaged in significantly improving
its completive advantage more so than a travel
agency with low levels of organizational learning.
Therefore, Hypothesis 4e was supported.
Discussion
The results of this study increase our understanding
and identification of organization-level perspectives
of competitive advantage attributes by empirically
examining how management practices may make a
difference in helping travel agencies survive in the
high-competition tourism industry. The use of a
mediation-moderation analysis conducted in a field
setting with travel agencies with an internal capability

5 6
Social Capital

4.5 5.5

4 5
Dynamic Capability

3.5 4.5

3 4

2.5 3.5

2 3

1.5 2.5
Low Organization Learning Low Organization Learning
1 2

0.5 High Organization Learning 1.5 High Organization Learning

0 1
Low Shared Goals High Shared Goals Low Shared Goals High Shared Goals

Figure 3. Interaction effects among shared goals and organizational Figure 4. Interaction effects among shared goals and organizational
learning to dynamic capability. learning to social capital.
Table 5. Interaction of organizational learning with links between shared value, dynamic capability, differential strategy, and social capital.
Dependent variable
Differential strategy Competitive advantage
Independent variable Model 5 Model 6 Model 7 Model 8 Model 9 Model 10
Control variables β t β t β t β t β t β t
Gender .018 0.25 .023 0.32 −.007 −0.09 −.007 −0.08 .021 0.24 .007 0.08
Age
21–30 −.087 −0.15 .013 0.02 −.832 −1.22 −.826 −1.20 −.852 −1.17 −.614 −0.86
31–40 −.058 −0.10 .040 0.07 −.062 −1.55 −.054 −1.53 −.037 −1.43 −.789 −1.10
41–50 −.093 −0.16 .019 0.03 −.871 −1.28 −.864 −1.26 −.891 −1.24 −.681 −0.96
Above 51 −.038 −0.07 .075 0.13 −.707 −1.04 −.699 −1.03 −.687 −0.95 −.453 −0.64
Level of education
University −.136 −0.80 −.124 −0.73 −.287 −1.47 −.285 −1.45 −.413 −2.00 −.352 −1.73
MBA or above −.162 −1.20 −.142 −1.05 −.175 −1.11 −.173 −1.09 −.217 −1.30 −.188 −1.15
History of foundation .001 0.38 .001 0.40 −.000 −0.20 −.000 −0.20 −.002 −0.91 −.002 −0.85
Independent variables
Organization learning (OL) .252*** 5.34 −.119 −0.50 .027 0.48 −.004 −0.02 .116* 1.99 −.968** −3.03
Dynamic capability (DC) .487*** 9.69 .082 0.32

ASIA PACIFIC JOURNAL OF TOURISM RESEARCH

Differential strategy (DS) .568*** 9.41 .534 1.77
Social capital (SC) .432*** 6.89 −.574 −1.93
Interaction effects
OL*DC .070 1.59
OL*DS .006 0.11
OL*DS .187*** 3.46
Model fit
R 2
.439 .444 .360 .360 .279 .309
R2Adj .419 .422 .337 .335 .253 .282
F-value 21.70*** 20.07*** 15.63*** 14.16*** 10.76*** 11.26***
*P < .05; **P < .01; ***P < .001.

11
12 C.-H. LIU ET AL.
6 The results provide a different perspective on the
5.5
Competitive Advantage
5 practices. This study found that the influence of
4.5
4
3.5
3
2.5
Low Organization Learning
2
1.5
High Organization Learning
1
Low Social Capital High Social Capital
Figure 5. Interaction effects among shared goals and organizational
learning to social capital.
and an external market strategy strengthens the val-
idity and generalizability of our findings.
Consistent with organizational learning theory
and tourism studies on how to survive and grow
in a dynamic environment, the results emphasize
that internal management practices such as shared
goals, social capital, and external attributes such as
differential strategy and dynamic capability, which
induce organizational learning, as well as learning
from other agencies and competitors, are necessary
to creating a competitive advantage. Although it
may not be surprising to find that organizational
learning may act as a critical moderating mechanism
to strengthen a travel agency’s capability and
enhance its competitive advantage, it is important
to note that managers must be held accountable
for developing internal and external capabilities
and strategies exhibited at high levels of organiz-
ational learning (see Figures 3–5). This suggests
that under conditions of high uncertainty and
changeable customer needs, a tourism organization
using only a single market strategy or an organiz-
ation without system-integrated incentives cannot
maintain its competitive advantage. Perhaps the
lesson of this finding is that in the absence of iden-
tifying certain conditions creating a sense of com-
petitive advantage, the resulting high levels of
organizational learning will benefit travel agencies’
internal and external organizational capability devel-
opment and will likely lead to successful organiz-
ational performance. Additionally, shared goals are
further stimulated by dynamic capability develop-
ment and social capital. Developing and encoura-
ging organizational learning was found to have a
stronger and more positive effect than simply
evaluating it.
boundary conditions of travel agency management
these practices on organizational learning varied
depending on the organizational traits under various
situations and on the managers involved. Consistent
with our proposition, higher learning orientation and
conscientiousness with environment scanning were
significantly related to higher dynamic capability
under conditions where organization employees
have shared values (Altinay, Sigala, & Waligo, 2016).
Travel agency management practices, such as social
capital, experience, and know-how accumulation in
cooperation with other agencies or competitors, may
be the most effective ways to enhance organizational
learning capacity and strengthen competitive advan-
tage (Long & Shi, 2017). Consistent with Aklamanu,
Degbey, and Tarba (2016), the results for human
resources management development suggest that
providing both shared values and knowledge
sharing for employees could help them to advance
relational, cognitive and structural social capital. One
possible explanation for this special industry involving
travel agencies is that high learning orientation facili-
tates a more sensitive environment and competitive-
ness awareness that helps agencies to develop
internal and external capability. As a result, when
faced with a dynamic environment or an openness
to international competitiveness, high learning orien-
tation tourism and hospitality organizations spend
more time and effort on shared values for employees
in order to increase organizational loyalty, learn motiv-
ation, encourage mutual trust, and provide benefits
for improving quality of service to customers and, ulti-
mately, for organizational profitability and competitive
advantage(Li, Wong, & Kim, 2016). The results also
challenge the widely accepted belief that high levels
of organizational learning lead to enhanced and
strengthened organizational intellectual capital,
which benefits the creation of competitive advantage
(Yaseen, Dajani, & Hasan, 2016). Rather, our results
support Sainaghi, Phillips, and Zavarrone’s (2017)
findings that learning by tourism firms involved in
internal and external relations may be beneficial for
them in accessing useful knowledge in certain
situations.
Theoretical contribution
This study makes several theoretical contributions to
the current tourism literature on how firms survive

and grow in a highly competitiveness industry. First,
mediation-moderation analyses were widely used to
examine organizational behaviour, as these have
been seen as central to strategic management
research (Aguinis, Edwards, & Bradley, 2017). This
study advances the existing travel agency industry
studies that investigate the magnitude of the effect
of antecedent attributes of dynamic capability devel-
opment, differential strategies, and organizational
learning on competitive advantage by adopting
mediation-moderation analyses to examine the pro-
posed relationships within an overarching framework
with different attributes. Previous studies evaluating a
tourism organization’s competitive advantage mainly
focused on simple mediation effects (Conze, Bieger,
Laesser, & Riklin, 2010) or moderation effects (Horng,
Liu, Chou, & Tsai, 2012). As far as we know, until
now, few studies have empirically examined the
influence of a firm’s level of competitive climate on
travel agency managers’ perspectives of differential
strategy, dynamic capability, social capital, shared
goals, organizational learning, and competitive advan-
tage. This is an important oversight, as empirical evi-
dence suggests that when facing high competition,
this may have implications for managers to develop
shared organizational goals and enhance employee
consociation, trust, motivation and social capital, and
can, therefore, offer an explanation for the relationship
between internal and external capability exertion and
an organization’s performance (Getz & Carlsen, 2000).
Second, following and extending prior tourism
studies, the current study provides an integrated
theoretical model which has not been examined in
the literature, displaying a critical moderate mechan-
ism of organizational learning to competitive advan-
tage in the highly competitive service industry, with
specific emphasis on the tourist agency. Thus far,
only a handful of tourism studies (e.g. Khoshkhoo,
Imani Khoshkhoo, Nadalipour, & Nadalipour, 2016;
Liu, 2017) have demonstrated the mechanisms under-
lying the relationship between organizational learn-
ing, internal and external capability and its verified
organizational performance attributes in tourism
studies. Garay, Font, and Pereira-Moliner (2017)
believe that the learning mechanism for organizations,
which can be regarded as a significant antecedent of
capability development, refers to the process of
obtaining, integrating, converting and acquiring
internal and external information into creating inno-
vation, with a view to creating a competitive advan-
tage over competitors (Liu, 2018). This work informs
ASIA PACIFIC JOURNAL OF TOURISM RESEARCH 13
existing evidence by highlighting the importance of
organizational learning as a moderator and how
various levels of organizational learning can consider-
ably impact the relationships between attributes and
further affect competitive outcomes (Zhu, Krikke, &
Caniëls, 2018). Consequently, we capture learning as
reflected in travel agency managers’ evolving use of
different sources of capabilities as an organization
advance. Thus, this study advances our understanding
by explaining the link between organizational learning
and its subsequent moderate role, with a new per-
spective on creating competitive advantage. The
study also takes advantage of a period of rapid
growth for the travel agency industry, which has a
large number of new openings. The research design
proxies learning as a differential attribute across the
organization’s sharing processes instead of using com-
petitive outcomes as a proxy for organizational learn-
ing. The findings can be interpreted as revealing not
only a goal-sharing process inherent to the evolution
of the travel agency industry operations but also man-
agers’ reaction to learning through the process.
Third, this study conceptualizes the multiple
mediation relationships between business strategy,
capability and tourism agencies in terms of dynamic
capability, differential strategy, and social capital. We
examined different aspects than those of prior
studies, which saw those variables as independent
factors in analysing organizational behaviour. In main-
stream research on the organizational behaviour
relationship between organizational strategy and per-
formance, scholars have separated organizational
behaviour attributes and investigated dynamic capa-
bility, differential strategy, and social capital in tra-
ditional business research (Blyler & Coff, 2003;
Roberson, Holmes IV, & Perry, 2017). This work high-
lights the importance of intangible resources, organiz-
ational strategy, and social capital in creating a
competitive advantage. Hsu and Wang (2012) asserted
that intangible resources need to be leveraged via
dynamic capabilities to improve organizational advan-
tages. Furthermore, successful differential strategies
help organizations integrate useful resources to
manage increasingly demanding customers in
dynamic business environments (Reimann, Schilke, &
Thomas, 2010). Social capital is the power to encou-
rage collaboration, recognize opportunities and
improve organizational efficiency (Kim, Lee, & Bonn,
2016) and achieve competitive outcomes (Hsiao, Lee,
& Chen, 1992). We integrated such concepts into this
study, which extends the large body of tourism and
14 C.-H. LIU ET AL.
hospitality literature linking organizational strategy
and practices to competitive advantage. Liu and
Chou (2016) proposed that identifying and integrating
tourism strategy not only explored customers’ atti-
tudes to their consumption behaviour but was also
meaningful for decision makers in constructing
tourism policy strategy planning. Instead, the existing
tourism literature explores the relationship between
social capital and innovation (Macbeth, Carson, &
Northcote, 2004), dynamic capability and knowledge
creation (Bueno, Anton, & Salmador, 2008), and differ-
entiation strategy and successful tourism destination
development (Chacko, 1996). In this study, social
capital, dynamic capability and differentiation strategy
were found to be significant mediators linking positive
relationships between shared goals and travel
agencies’ competitive advantage. The findings
provide new evidence to support the contention
that the appropriate use and development of social
capital, dynamic capability and differentiation strategy
can enhance an organization’s competitive
advantage.
Managerial implications
This study also provides several implications for
tourism organization managers for present and
future management. First, our findings suggest that
learning drastically strengthens an organization’s
capability–competitiveness relationship. When learn-
ing from customers, competitors and suppliers may
strengthen the organization’s internal and external
capability development and further enhance competi-
tiveness (Fraj et al., 2015). It is thus vital that managers
in the travel agency industry gain insight into the key
predictors of organizational learning to explain how
organizational internal and external capability may
influence performance. Travel agency managers
should create a pleasurable organizational learning
atmosphere that sets out the motivation and reward
mechanism in clear and actionable terms, such as in
subsidy training courses, and encourage employees
to learn from the outside. Because organizational
learning capability not only helps firms navigate the
challenges and future industry trends in turbulent
environments, it is also as an effective way to
develop an organization’s strategic human resources
(Camps, Oltra, Aldás-Manzano, Buenaventura-Vera, &
Torres-Carballo, 2016).
Second, shared goals and values are the significant
foundation predictors influencing travel agency
management performance. In a highly competitive
environment, with changing customer needs and an
unpredictable political and business environment,
successful managers may recognize that the best
competitive strategy is “from inside to outside” (Hu,
He, Blettner, & Bettis, 2017). Developing and building
shared value and an organization’s future vision sig-
nificantly influences travel agency employees to
strengthen their sense of belonging, mutual trust
and confidence in the organization’s future develop-
ment. After an organization’s shared value and goals
are embedded among employees, and they recognize
that they are under some obligation to contribute to
organizational development, employees will feel that
the efforts they expend for the organization are mean-
ingful; this will thus increase their motivation to help
the organization enhance its performance (Yoon
et al., 2016). Furthermore, managers may also adopt
an open-door policy and encourage employees to par-
ticipate in the decision-making process, express their
opinions, and provide constructive comments on the
organization’s future goal-making. On the other
hand, even when facing a competitive environment
and needing to respond to environmental changes
immediately, managers still must listen to employees’
voices, increase their embedded role in organizational
decision-making and see them as key players in the
organization, actors who can enhance its dynamic
capability as internal consociates to resist external
challenges. Considering the comparable travel
service and product offerings in the global tourism
market, service excellence evaluation, and quality
improvement resulting from highly devoted employ-
ees willing to contribute innovative ideas (Tsaur, Yen,
& Yang, 2011), a further strong sense of belonging
and a high commitment to the organization’s shared
goals will serve as a primary competitive edge to dis-
tinguish one brand from another (Li et al., 2016).
Third, we found the mediating effects of dynamic
capability, differential strategy, and social capital
between shared goals and competitive advantage sig-
nificant in travel agencies. This links well with the
business strategy, social network and dynamic capa-
bility development perspective of a firm which postu-
lates that its imitable capability determines its
competitive advantage (Gelhard, von Delft, & Guder-
gan, 2016). This perspective reflects that a firm’s com-
petitive advantage does not rely on natural resources,
new technology adoption or economies of production
scale (Mahmood & Hanafi, 2013, p. 86), but depends
on an appropriate business competitive strategy (Liu

& Chou, 2016), social capital development (Chuang
et al., 2016), and dynamic capability (Dangelico et al.,
2017). Managers could develop mechanisms to encou-
rage employees or other department managers to
manage their network relationships to stimulate new
information and make appropriate business strategies
satisfy customer and market needs (Chuang et al.,
2016); with such mechanisms playing a role, competi-
tive advantage will be greatly enhanced. Furthermore,
creating a competitive internal environment is also
helpful for an organization’s dynamic capability
improvement. From a dynamic capability develop-
ment perspective, a manager may analyse an organiz-
ation’s competitive environment. First, put all daily
and monthly job performance statistics into a data-
base and analyse an employee’s performance com-
pared to others’. Then, provide clear guidance and
supportive management for employees regarding
how well they are doing and where they need
improvement, to ensure effective communication (Li
et al., 2016). When the internal competitive environ-
ment is managed effectively, mutual competition
among employees may not only improve their creativ-
ity but also help improve the organization’s dynamic
capability, thus increasing the travel agency’s overall
competitive advantage.
Limitations and suggestions for future research
Despite its contributions, the current study is not
without limitations and provides suggestions for
future studies. The critical attributes related to social
capital, shared goals, dynamic capability, differential
strategy and competitive advantage are not compre-
hensive. Other constructs, attributes, and variables
could be considered in new tourism-related industry
research frameworks in the future studies. Various
other performance indexes of alternative competitive
advantage might be added to the model, such as
service innovation (Chen, Kerr, Chou, & Ang, 2017;
García-Villaverde, Elche, Martínez-Pérez, & Ruiz-
Hortega, 2017), knowledge creation (Bueno et al.,
2008), or knowledge-acquisition capability (Wu &
Chen, 2012). Additionally, this study focused on the
highly competitive travel agency industry in Taiwan.
Future studies could extend our research findings
and use them for other industries, countries or
regions, and compare differences and similarities
which may prove more meaningful for existing litera-
tures. Matzler, Strobl, Stokburger-Sauer, Bobovnicky,
and Bauer (2016) notes that in terms of the
ASIA PACIFIC JOURNAL OF TOURISM RESEARCH 15
characteristics of tourism industries and competitive-
ness density in other countries, it would be interesting
to compare the critical attributes, the impact of cul-
tural differences, and causal relationship factors in
one country with those in another. Furthermore, due
to constraints in resources, time, and willingness of
participants, the data collected only covers a short
period. Volo and Irimiás (2016) suggest that a longi-
tudinal approach may provide a comprehensive analy-
sis of marketing initiatives and uncover the differences
in competitive advantage at different stages of the
tourism industry. Therefore, it is suggested that
future studies adopt cross-sectional and longitudinal
design to observe the changes in the competitive
advantage of travel agencies.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Funding
The authors would like to thank anonymous reviewers for useful
suggestions and the Ministry of Science and Technology (ROC)
for financial support (grant number: MOST 106-2511-S-130
-003 -MY3).
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