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The purpose of this study is to add new insights into the discussion of how a city’s destination marketing organization (DMO) can apply operant resources to act upon its operant resources to create, market and manage a unique brand over time.

The study uses an abductive approach to advance understanding of how to execute a branding strategy that evolves over time while strategically curating its unique and valued resources. This understanding is based on an in-depth review of Louisville’s branding journey, including written documents and interviews with people involved in building the branding strategy.

This paper presents a model to help destinations focus on how to create, market and manage the delivery of a branded ecosystem that capitalizes on its resources. The study adds new insights into how DMOs can curate a destination’s resources into an ecosystem that delivers its brand promise over time.

The study introduces the idea of ecotopes to expand an understanding of tourism ecosystems, it presents the concept of a customer journey to depict a destination’s branding strategy, incorporates Barney’s Resource Based Theory (Barney & Clark, 2007) into the process of creating a destination’s brand and applies Barnard’s (1938) classic Acceptance Theory of Authority to explain how DMOs can execute a destination’s branding strategy.

Identifying, attracting, and maintaining the engagement of the right composition of people for a non‐profit Board is a major challenge. Executives should ensure that their Boards accurately represent the stakeholders that matter, both from industry and the community. The purpose of this paper is to describe ways and offer propositions for effective non‐profit executives to identify, recruit, and motivate the continuing engagement of the members needed on their Boards in order to acquire resources critical to their sustained success.

The Convention and Visitors Bureaus (CVBs) are used as an example, since at least 93 percent of CVBs have a governance structure that includes a Board of Directors. Successfully attracting the right mix of stakeholders is a result of an extensive recruitment effort by the CVB executive. Prior research reports that successful executives take great care in making selection decisions that reflect the interests of the community in the Board's composition. Based on the literature on Boards and governance, the authors develop propositions regarding the composition of CVB Boards.

While the research is exploratory, it is found that CVBs with more diverse Boards are more successful than those with less diverse Boards. It is argued that effective CVBs use a thoughtful process for heterogeneous Board selection. It is also suggested that Board performance should be evaluated on an annual basis to recognize the need for active involvement in the Board selection process.

The successful selection of Board members is important because of the implications for Board effectiveness. While there is a large body of literature offering advice on Board selection, there is little on recruitment. Moreover, there is little discussion of Board composition strategy based on balancing access to critical resources of stakeholders.

The purpose of this paper is to illustrate, through the example of the Springfield Armory and its role in the development of interchangeable parts, the critical role of government in establishing a cluster of organizations that evolved into an innovation ecosystem primarily located in the Connecticut River Valley in the 1800s. Using the Springfield Armory example, we use the related but largely unjoined concepts of ecosystem and networks to show that these organizational forms are effective in driving innovation.

The design uses an in-depth analysis of the role of the Springfield Armory to explicate the joining of network and ecosystem theory as an early example of the importance of governmental funding and support for innovation.

The development of interchangeable parts in the American arms industry in the 19th century transformed manufacturing worldwide. At the heart of this transformation was the network of arms makers that developed in the Connecticut River Valley as a direct result of US Government investment and support. This network of arms makers evolved into an ecosystem of mutually reinforcing relationships as machine tool manufacturers benefited from an environment of free-flowing intellectual property, information and growing governmental demand for arms. The Armory illustrates the government’s role in initiating and sustaining clusters of innovation that otherwise might not have developed as quickly.

Much of the research on the role of government in creating innovation ecosystems and organizational networks is based on modern organizations. This use of the Springfield Armory in the early 1800s broadens the knowledge on how innovation ecosystems in conjunction with networked organizations can be created by governments serving the public good.

With the ever-increasing adoption of technology and automation radically changing the nature of service delivery, the purpose of this paper is to explore the role of human touch, introducing hospitable service as an enhancement for value creation in service organizations.

Drawing on management, social sciences and hospitality literatures, a four-configuration model is presented to illustrate dimensions which arise from the confluence of different degrees of relationship orientation – shared mental models held by the host organization (self- or other-oriented), and guests’ service preferences (transactional or relational).

A theoretically grounded model of configurations resulting from variations on three key dimensions is offered. These are: employee organization relationships – social exchange processes governing the interactions between employees and their employers; HRM systems – internally consistent combinations of HR practices; and tech-touch trade-off – prioritization of technology vs employees to deliver services.

Embedding hospitable service as a construct to support the leveraging of human touch in service organizations opens up new research opportunities including avenues to further conceptualize the nature and dimensions of hospitable service. Future research that supports further understanding about the role of human touch and value creation in service organizations is proposed.

Through the value-enhancing capability of human in the service encounter, firms can be enabled to accurately position themselves in one of the four relational configurations on offer and then identify opportunities for managers to leverage human touch to combat the diminishing role of the human touch in a technology-ubiquitous service context.

This is among the first papers to explore the influence of technology on the degree of human touch in the interface between hospitality employee and customer, and to develop a configuration model through which researchers and practitioners can operate during this declining era of human to human service interactions.

The purpose of this paper is to offer insights and lessons learned about how to successfully balance the interests of the many competing stakeholders who can or do influence the CVB's strategy for marketing a destination.

The study uses a qualitative case study approach utilizing an extensive interview as the method for data collection. A series of structured questions specifically designed to focus the interview on the topic of interest was used to facilitate data collection.

The paper presents insights from Mr William C. Peeper, the person largely responsible for building the Orlando Orange County Convention and Visitors Bureau from a two‐person organization into the multi million‐dollar operation it became by the time he retired 25 years later. Since the focus of the paper is on how to successfully balance the differing goals of stakeholders to achieve organizational goals, this interview offers a number of lessons learned that can be used by any organizational leader seeking to balance the interests of diverse stakeholders.

This study provides fresh ideas and new insights into how to successfully manage an organization's stakeholders in ways that make it possible to achieve an organization's mission across time. The success Mr Peeper had in gaining sustained support for the mission and goals of the Orlando CVB provides important lessons on how to manage all stakeholders especially the corporate governance structure that is pertinent to any organization that has to accommodate many diverse viewpoints and interests. There is little existing knowledge on managing stakeholders across time as their interests and needs change and the management of them must also adapt.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the management innovations developed and implemented by the Harvey House restaurants with specific attention to those human resource policies and procedures that were created to use what many believe to be the first large-scale use of single women working away from home, the famous Harvey Girls. A second purpose of this paper is to use bricolage theory to frame the innovations that Harvey pioneered to illustrate how the theory pertains to this entrepreneur who civilized dining in the “Wild West.”

This paper relies on secondary and archival sources to inform its points and rationale.

Fred Harvey applied his experience-gained knowledge to invent a system that would provide meals to railroad travelers along the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe railroad that were not only consistently excellent and reasonably priced but also could be served within the tight time limits of train stops for fuel and water. The precision of his service standards was innovative and required trained and disciplined servers. To deliver the quality of service for which his company became known across the “Wild West.” Harvey invented his famous Harvey Girls.

Fred Harvey’s invention of the Harvey Girls represents the first large-scale employment of women and required the invention of human resource management policies, procedures and processes. This is the story of how this management innovator successfully applied entrepreneurial bricolage to bring civilized dining to the “Wild West.”

The purpose of this paper is to present and partially test the triangle model of fairness (TMF) by examining employee reactions to customer fairness.

A total of 217 undergraduate hospitality students at a US university participated in the study. Participants seated in a classroom were asked to take part in the study. Customer interpersonal justice was manipulated (high justice versus low justice) in a completely randomized between‐subjects design. The manipulation consisted of written scenarios that depicted interactions between a customer and an employee. Participants read the scenarios. Then, they were instructed to imagine they were the employee in the scenario and were asked to answer questions that assessed their reactions to the interaction with the customer.

Consistent with the predictions, the results of the study revealed that when employees experience interpersonally fair treatment from customers, they are more likely to engage in helping behaviors toward their organization and future customers.

The paper examines employee responses to fairness from customers, in terms of helping (or harming) the organization and future customers. As rationale for the study, the authors drew on the TMF. The study makes a contribution to research on services and organizational justice by being the first to empirically examine the TMF. Overall, this paper demonstrates that organizations need to be cognizant of the effects of customers' treatment on service employees, as customers' treatment can have serious effects on employees' subsequent behaviors.

Hospitality organizations, whether large or small, are complex entities requiring managers to work through frontline employees to manage every guest's moment of truth and meet their firms' goals and objectives. This study aims to test propositions that firms whose staffing policies and systems are aligned with their strategic goals and objectives to outperform those firms with poorer organizational alignment.

Data were collected through a survey administered in winter of 2005 to 200 hourly wage employees from each of four matched hotels. Some 479 completed surveys were returned yielding a 59 percent response rate.

Between‐group differences in organizational alignment measures were statistically significant in the directions predicted. Specifically, subjects from the high organizational alignment hotels, on average, reported significantly higher organizational support, employee service commitment and employee satisfaction as compared to low organizational alignment properties.

The findings of this study provide a strong indication that the workplace environment is a concept that employees are aware of which in turn influences their commitment and satisfaction.

This research provides managers with an assessment tool useful for ensuring that a firm is being effectively managed.

The purpose of this paper is to show how the content of a firm's culture, carefully developed by top managers, can create effective employee experiences and how this exemplary case of strategic culture shaping relate to various academic insights on intangible social or collaborative capital.

Inductive case study (of a large American convention hotel), highlighting the strategic crafting of a service‐firm culture, both descriptively (in terms of what took place) and analytically (in terms of various OB‐literatures).

Describes how organizational culture can be part of strategizing in terms of aligning cultural expressions regarding various employees' practices, including continuous organizational improvement. Analyzes and integrates various extant culture insights on service cultures and culture strength.

Insights are applicable to a wide variety of work settings beyond the hospitality and service sectors; it expands the view of organizational culture to the broader and more complex, strategic issue of how organizations can craft or amend cultures that fit their missions.

One may learn from this case (including the authors' reflections), how to put a well‐articulated service mission into operational practice: through taking a particular, desired culture quite seriously when creating employee experiences, so that they are effectively focused on that mission.

The paper illustrates specific tactics for implementing culture plus the value of developing a strategic approach to creating a particular culture. It offers a template of crafting a culture, based on the strategic pairing of managerial mission with action (or employee and client experiences). Strategizing with culture, also referred to as firm‐cultural content shaping, is meant for researchers and practitioners seeking to help develop a mission‐focused organizational culture.