Luận án tiến sĩ Quản trị kinh doanh: Alliance management practice for higher trust, commitment, and inter-organizational relationship performance: a study of travel companies in Vietnam

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY HO CHI MINH CITYINTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY NGUYEN THI MINH PHUONG ALLIANCE MANAGEMENT PRACTICES FOR HIGHER TRUST, COMMITMENT, AND INTER-ORGANIZATIONAL RELATIONS

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY HO CHI MINH CITY

INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY

NGUYEN THI MINH PHUONG

ALLIANCE MANAGEMENT PRACTICE FOR HIGHER TRUST,

COMMITMENT, AND INTER-ORGANIZATIONAL RELATIONSHIP PERFORMANCE- A STUDY OF TRAVEL COMPANIES IN VIETNAM.

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

in BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION

ID: 9340101

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY HO CHI MINH CITY

INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY

NGUYEN THI MINH PHUONG

ALLIANCE MANAGEMENT PRACTICES FOR HIGHER TRUST, COMMITMENT, AND INTER-ORGANIZATIONAL RELATIONSHIP PERFORMANCE- A STUDY OF TRAVEL COMPANIES IN VIETNAM.

MAJOR: BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION

ID: 9340101

SUPERVISOR:

Assoc Prof Dr NGUYEN NGOC DUY PHUONG

HO CHI MINH CITY, JUNE 2024

ATTESTATION OF AUTHORSHIP

I hereby declare that this dissertation is my own work and that, to the best of my knowledge and belief,

it contains no material previously written or published by another party, nor material which to a

considerable extent has been submitted for the achievement of any other degree of a university or other

institution of higher learning.

Ho Chi Minh City June 2024

Nguyen Thi Minh Phuong

Approved by: Supervisor.

Assoc Prof Dr Nguyen Ngoc Duy Phuong

To become a Ph.D student and study a Ph.D course at the School of Business,International University, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam National University, Ho Chi MinhCity, Vietnam is magnificent and has many challenging experiences for me During thistime, many instructors have directly and indirectly supported me to reach and complete mystudies

I’d like to express my bottomless gratitude to my husband, who supported andintroduced me to the research world, he is also my best friend and my respected Assoc.Prof I’d like to thank my supervisor Assoc Prof Dr Nguyen Ngoc Duy Phuong joined

me during study PhD course, I was immature and lacked experience at the beginning of my

research, and I made many mistakes while conducting my research and publishing my

papers He is willing to help me, listen to me, and help me patiently to edit my papers andsend them to famous journals He is a real friend and a real teacher to me

Here, I wish to express thanks to my lecturers at International University First, Dr

Ho Nhut Quang introduced and taught me how to write a research proposal and writing

dissertation, he imparted research knowledge to me and instilled the moral values of doingresearch in me Second, I wish to express thanks to Assoc Prof Dr Ha Minh Tri, hasfilled me with a strong sense of duty while participating in his course “Advanced

Qualitative Research Methods”, he is a wonderful lecturer, and without him, I wouldn’tknow how to do the qualitative method Following, I'd like to express my sincere gratitude

to Dr Cao Minh Man, he always encouraged me to study research during a course withhim “Advanced Quantitative Analysis in Business”, he made careful recommendations to

me (his students) “Please don’t give up, just keep going and doing your research, if youstop to relax or don't do research a period when you come back it will spent a lot of time toexplore it again, or maybe late deadline, or you will give up” I followed Dr Man’ssuggestion, so I did my research every day based on my strategy plan to reach my goal,that is why I successfully achieved to complete my PhD dissertation within three years at

International University The deepest thanks to the International University gave me the

scholarship to study a doctoral of business administration, without this scholarship, Iwouldn’t have had enough financial to continue to reach my dream, based on this

scholarship my dream come true I wish to send my deepest thanks to Prof Zafar forteaching me how to do research design, and how to successfully achieve papers and

publish it on famous journal in the world I remember these words from him “Read, read,read, read” This statement led me to focus on reading all papers and information related to

my research field, from his suggestions stimulated me every day must make a greater effort

to reach the knowledge by reading I followed his suggestions and never forgot thismethod I wish also would take this opportunity to thank Dr Bui Quang Thong taught me astrategic management course supported me and teach me many meaningful lessons,without his lessons I didn’t know how to arrange time and strategy to reach my PhD goals.I’d like to thank Assoc Prof Dr Nguyen Nhu Ty and the staff at International Universityhelped me and guided me to complete all the documents to complete the PhD course

Lastly, I’d like to express my bottomless appreciation to my sons, and my family I

could not have achieved it without the love of my son, my mother, my sisters, and mybrothers who raised me up, supported, encouraged, and shared everything with me duringthis time I wish to thank my friends who shared their skills and experiences and spent time

with me, without their support, I could not reach my PhD goal

I wish to thank everyone who voluntarily participated in my research, spent their

time discussing all problems and shared their perspective about my research field to serve

in in-depth interviews, and people who answered our survey, people introduced other

participants to join this study and who found people who wanted to support me and help

me to complete collect data, and assisted me in everything in other ways, thank you very

much I am truly lucky to have met this person during my study PhD such is truly excellentand kind to support me

Journal Publications

Phuong, N T M., Khuong, M N., & Phuong, N N D (2021) Alliance

management practices for higher trust, commitment and inter-organizationalrelationship performance: Evidence from travel companies —in

Vietnam Sustainability, 13(16), 9102 (SSCI — SCOPUS Q2; Impact factor: 3.9;Citescore: 5.8; H-INDEX: 136) https://doi.org/10.3390/su13169102

Nguyen, P T M., Mai, K N., & Nguyen, P N D (2023) Does Trust Affect

Antecedents of Inter-Organizational Governance Mechanisms and Elicit Successful

Collaboration via Innovation? An Empirical Study from a Market-OrientedEconomy in Vietnam Sustainability, 15(12), 9547 (SSCI - SCOPUS Q2; Impactfactor: 3.9; Citescore: 5.8; H-INDEX: 136) https://doi.org/10.3390/su15129547

Phuong, N T M., Khuong, M N., & Phuong, N N D (2021) The factors

affecting ¡inter-organizational relationship success in Vietnam tourismsector Management Science Letters, 11(6), 1901-1912 (SCOPUS Q2; ESCI;

ISSN 1923-9343 (Online) - ISSN 1923-9335 (Print); H-INDEX: 27) DOI:10.5267/j.msI.2021.1.012

Phuong, N T M., Khuong, M N., & Phuong, N N D (2022) Exploring the organizational relationship performance: Evidence fom social-oriented

intermarket Cogent Social Sciences (Revised waiting for acceptance letter SCOPUS Q2)

-Phuong, N T M., Khuong, M N., & -Phuong, N N D (2022) The effect of organizational relationship management on relationship success — A study of travel

Inter-firms Cogent Business and Management (In reviewing process - SCOPUS Q2)

Conference Proceedings

Nguyen Thi Minh Phuong, Nguyen Ngoc Duy Phuong (2019) A critical review ofirs and its application in tourism industry Jn proceedings of 2019 Ist InternationalConference on Economics, Business and Tourism (ICEBT-2019) - International

Univeristy - Vietnam National University Ho Chi Minh VNU-HCM PRESS pp

255 — 278 ISBN 978-604-73-7056-6

1.1 Background of the Tourism Industry

1.2 Rationales for the Research of Inter-organizational Relations!

1.3 Research Objective:

1.4 Research Questions

1.5 Research Methodology

1.6 The Structure of the Dissertation

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 Theoretical Foundation

2.1.2 Transaction Cost Theory (TCT)

2.1.2 Resource Dependence Theory (RDT)

2.2 Inter-organizational Relationship Performance (IORP)

2.3 Componentsof Alliance Management Practices (AMP)

2.4.1 The Relationship between factors of AMP and Commitment

2.4.2 The Relationship between factors of AMP and Trust.

2 The Relationship between factors of AMP and IORP

2.4.4, The Relationship between Inter-organizational Trust and Commitment

2.4.5 The Relationship between Factos of AMP and IORP through Trust and

Commitmeni

101

- 106

- 108 108 111

2.5 Research Framework

2.6 Summary.

CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

3.1 Philosophy and paradigm of scientific research

3.2 Mixed Methods Research Design

3.3 Qualitative Research Design

3.3.1 Interview Protocol Development - 120

3.3.2 Select Target Population liệt 121

3.3.3 Sampling Design of Qualitative Phase 122 3.3.4 Sample Size of Qualitative Phase .122 33.5 In-depth interviews 124

3.3.6 Analyze the qualitative dafa - - : 125

3.4 Quantitative Research Design 127 3.4.1 Unit of analysis and target population in this research

3.4.2 Sampling Design

a 132 134

3.4.3 Survey Instruments

3.4.4, Sample size determination of quantitative phase

3.4.5 Measurement of Constructs .

3.4.6 Main Data collection in a quantitative phas

3.4.7 Data analysis in a quantitative phase

3.5 Ethical issues

- 150 152 152

3.6 Summary.

CHAPTER 4: RESEARCH FINDINGS

4.1 Qualitative research results

4.1.1 Profile of Interviewees

4.1.2 Analysis the perspectives of IORP in interviews

4.1.3 The perspectives of Inter-organizational trust and IORP ae 157

4.1.4 The perspectives of Inter-organizational commitment and IORP

4.1.6 The perspectives of communication and IORP.

The perspectives of coordination and IORP.

4.1.7 The perspectives of participation and IORP

4.1.8 The perspectives of frequency of interactions and IORP + 163 4.1.9 The perspectives of flexibility and IORP.

4.1.10 Analysis the relationship between factors of AMP and IORP 168

177 4.2 Quantitative research results

4.2.1 Preliminary screening stage

4.2.1.1 Demographics of the participants

4.2.2 Measurement models analysis

4.2.2.1 Reflective measurement models

4.2.2.2 Internal consistency reliability

4.2.2.3 Discriminant validity.

4.2.3 Structural model analysis

4.2.3.1 Testing predictive power and predictive relevance of structural model.

5.2 Effects of factors of AMP on inter-organizational commitment (H1)

5.3 Effects of factors of AMP on inter-organizational trust (H2) 13

5.4 Effects factors of AMP on inter-organizational organizational performance (H3) 217 5.5 Effects of trust on inter-organizational commitment (H4)

5.6 The mediating role of trust and commitment (H5)

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 2.1: Searching the hierarchy of transaction costs involved between the travel

companies & their business partners

Figure 3.1: The process of triangulation that represents a mixed method 107

Figure 3.2: The exploratory sequential design

Figure 3.3: Research process (Creswell, J & Plano Clark, V., 2017) .IHFigure 3.4: A process of the qualitative data collection -‹ - -+ 114

Figure 4.1: Summary of Insights from Interviews of the Senior Managers of Travel

COHHDAHHOS 04 /////0///02////////4//1//3/1//1/0/////40/772//03% 166

Figure 4.2: Travel companies and their providers engage in IRs 172Figure 4.3 Travel companies and their business partners in alliance relationships to joint

Figure 4.4: Research constructs and their indicator variables - - - 192

Figure 4.5: The results of the PLS-SEM cc c1 SS* ke ky 205

LIST OF TABLESTable 1.1: Total tourism receipts (2000 — 2019) 2 25+2c+>csseerxsesersexerxerxereee 3

Table 2.1: Summary of Literature R€ViW - 5c St tk 69Table 2.2 Summary of Previous studies - c7 Sky 75Table 3.1: Operationalization of research variables - -‹‹ -‹<+ 133Table 3.2: Rules of Thumb for Model Evaluation ‹ - + + <+> 140Table 4.1: Profile of interviewees in a qualitative phase - ‹ 148Table 4.2: Themes of Alliance relationships between Travel Companies and Their

Table 4.8: reliability and validity - -⁄c S122 Si sxy 189

Table 4.9: Discriminant validity of Fornell and Larcker criteria results 190Table 4.10: Discriminant validity of Heterotrait-Monotrait Ratio results 191Table 4.11: Variance Inflation Factor (VIF) Sexy 193

Table 4.12: Effect sizes (f square), 7 S311 2211k 194

Table 4.13: Structural model fït ‹ - cece esse 111 **+2£tvsx+ss+errree 195Table 4.14: Path Coefficients & Hypothesis Testing- Direct effect on Commitment,

Table 4.15: Indirect effect on Commitment, IORP 203

Table 4.16: Total effect

LIST OF APPENDIXES

Appendix 1: Previous studies

Appendix 2: Interview protocol

Appendix 3: Interview guide- Interview qu€SfÏOTS - ¿555 5+25+c>xerxerxerrrrrrree 278

Appendix 4: Sources of measurement Scales cessescesseessesseseseeseesessesessesteseesessesenesees 281Appendix 5: IRs questionnaire in Vietnamese c.cecceeesessessesseseeessesneseseeseesessesnesesees 288

Appendix :6 IRs questionnaire in English cece esseseseseeseseseeeeeeseeeeeeeseeeeesesteneeeeneee 291Appendix 7: Pilot testing evaluation form - - ¿5c 555sccsecseerxereeerrexreeeee 202

Appendix 8: Pilot test form - 5-56 + 293Appendix 9: Statistics

Appendix 10: Results of blindfolding technique ¿- c5 55+ s++ecexeerxerxer+ 301

Appendix 11: Final Results of PLS-SEM -5-55c55+5>s>xeesseeeeexeexeeeee e SLD

Appendix 12: Model of EFA and reliability - 6 + + ềS+£E£kEkerkeEkerkerrkerkrek 313Appendix 13: Model of blindfolding result + 6 +5 +èS‡£‡EvEkerkeEketkerkrkerkrek 314Appendix 14: Model of Boostrap 2000) -ccc S2 nu 308

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONSAMP Alliance management practice

IORP Inter-organizational relationship performance

IRs Inter-organizational relationships

RDT Resource dependence theory

TCT Transaction cost theory

SMEs Small medium entrepreneurs

PLS-SEM Partial least squares structural equation modelling

SEM Structural equation modelling

HTMT Heterotrait-monotrait

EFA Exploratory factor analysis

AVE Average variance extracted

VIF Variance inflation factor

CR Construct reliability

WTO World tourism organization

PATA Pacific Asia Tourism Association

JATA Japan association of travel agents

ASTA American society of travel advisors

GDP Gross domestic product

UNESCO United Nations educational, scientific, and cultural organizationUSD Us dollar

VND Viet Nam Dong

CFA Confirmatory factor analysis

The inter-organizational relationships (IRs) theory existed a long time ago and isvery famous in many fields such as societies, economics, policies and administrationscience (Weber, 1947), in health and welfare agencies (Phillips, 1960; Hage &Aiken,1971) in Midwest, in the marketing field (Palmatier et al., 2007), in accounting field

(Dekker, 2004), in Spain tourism clusters (Elche et al., 2018), in hospitality field Munoz & García-Falcón, 2000) The IRs are well-known to answer the question of why

(Medina-organizations participate in exchange relationships and what factors of IRs affectsuccessful relationships Oliver (1990) showed the reasons to establish and motivateorganizations to engage in IRs based on necessity, asymmetry, reciprocity, efficiency,

stability, and legitimacy Vietnam's tourism experienced impressive growth from 2008 to

2019, but it has weakened due to the impact of the pandemic up to the present Therefore,what should the travel companies and their partners do to overcome the crisis caused bythe COVID-19 pandemic? This research refined and extended prior works identifying

antecedents of inter-organizational relationship performance (IORP) and developed a morecomprehensive framework examining how factors of alliance management practices

(AMP), trust, and commitment facilitate the achievement of IORP The aim of this study is

to identify the relationships between factors of AMP affect trust, and commitment.Moreover, what factors of alliance management practices (AMP), trust, and commitment

affect IORP between travel companies and their partners in Vietnam? Furthermore, how

their effects lead to IORP through the mediating roles of trust and commitment withintegrating an RDT and TCT This study employed mixed methods, is better to clarify adeeper understanding of the IORP phenomenon complexity in this research problem

(Pikkemaat et al., 2020), combines qualitative and quantitative data collection and analysis

procedures (Creswell & Clark, 2017) First, a qualitative approach by conducting in-depthinterviews from July to September 2019 that were conducted to explore the concepts ofIORP, factors of AMP, trust, and commitment, these dimensions manifested in the travelcompanies Then, based on the results of qualitative findings and existing literature, a

questionnaire survey was developed, it is an instrument to survey senior managers of travel

companies With using a self-administered questionnaire survey to collect data from 319SMEs of travel companies during the COVID-19 pandemic from December 2019 to April

2021, and data analysis with a partial least squares structural equation modeling

(PLS-SEM) using Smart-PLS software (version 3.0) to determine the path coefficient among

these latent constructs The empirical results reveal that three out of five factors of AMP(COMU, CORD, PART) have positive effects on commitment and trust toward IRs, as

well as the findings predicted four factors of AMP (commitment, coordination, trust,

frequency of interaction) with a strong significant influence on IORP, lead to the travelcompanies engage more in IORP Moreover, a positive correlation was found betweentrust and commitment However, the impact of the direct and indirect impact of flexibility

on trust, commitment, and IORP is relatively limited Interestingly, communication and

participation have indirect impacts on IORP through the mediating roles of trust and

commitment, as well as also indirectly affecting commitment through trust Moreover, thefindings address the gap that proved the mediating roles of trust and commitment partiallymediate between factors of AMP and IORP, it indicated that the mediating roles of trust

and commitment are important in shaping an organization’s behavior to createcommunication, participation lead to enhance IORP, the alliance relationships between

travel companies were confirmed based on four reasons are necessity, efficiency, stability,and legitimacy for the travel companies engage in IRs with their business partners From

the results, this study provides new insights into the literature on tourism, and alliancerelationships regarding trust, commitment, coordination, communication, participation,

frequency of interaction, and IORP In addition, the results can guide indispensablestrategies that travel companies and tourism sectors can use to improve the outcomes oftourism sectors in terms of long-term collaboration and whether to create or continue a

relationship is strategically advantageous, as well as improving the success of the ongoing

relationship between the travel companies and their business partners This study alsoprovided some suggestions for the tourism companies and other tourism sectors to beaware of the need to form exchange relationships with other partners to sustainably surviveand develop together

1.1 Background of the Tourism Industry

In 1946 inter-organization relationships (IRs) were established in Vietnam The

organizations in Vietnam have engaged in IRs since 1946 with a call by President Ho Chi

Minh; various economic units were subsequently formed that joined dyadic relationships,joint ventures, networks, and alliance relationships in 63 provinces in Vietnam Asexpected, the strategy of the Government of Vietnam is to develop the tourism industry as

an important economic industry (Vietnam Cooperative Alliance, 2018) There were many

plans for national tourist development International cooperation, promotion, and

advertisement on tourism were highlighted and were approved by the Government ofVietnam There were 12 tourism cooperation agreements with Southeast Asian nations,

Israel, France, China, Uzbekistan, and some others in the future that have been signed byVietnam In 1981 the World Tourism Organization (WTO) accepted the tourism industry

of Vietnam as a sector-specific member of the WTO In 1989, the tourism industry ofVietnam also became a member of the Pacific Asia Tourism Association (PATA) Withthis policy, the tourism field successfully became a critical economic area in PATA

Moreover, many tourist firms started their businesses following government strategies and

travel companies cooperate through JATA, ASTA, and PATA with 800 collaborations inover 50 countries (Vietnam Cooperative Alliance, 2018) The tourism industry hascontributed significantly to the economic development in Vietnam, in 2019 the tourismindustry thus far welcomed 25 million domestic tourists and 8.9 million international

tourists, and the tourism sector accounted for 9.2% of GDP (Vietnam Tourism AnnualReport, 2019)

Vietnam possesses a rich natural, historical, and cultural heritage Besides, it hasover 3,000 km of coastline, pristine beaches, mountainous highlands, and dynamic

growing cities The tourism industry in Vietnam has developed, achieved success, andbeen called “World’s Leading Heritage Destination”; “World’s Best Golf Destination”;

“Asia’s Leading Destination”; ““Asia’s Leading Cultural Destination”, and “Asia’s Leading

Culinary Destination” (Vietnam Tourism Government, 2020) Vietnam is well-known as a

favored destination with its naturally delicate richness There are a lot of enormous naturalcaves and incredible bays that UNESCO has recognized as “World Natural HeritageAreas”, and Vietnam has many types of tours for travelers, for example, “cultural and

historical tours, sea-based tours, adventure tours, ecotourism, and luxurious vacations”

(Vietnam Insider, 2020) Thanks to the gifts from Mother Nature, the tourism industry inVietnam has made remarkable achievements in revenue in recent years; the total revenueaccounted for USD 26.66 billion and USD 32.47 billion from 2018 to 2019 (VNAT, 2008-

2020), and the rate of international tourists has increased from 5 million visitors to 18

million from 2010 to 2019 (VNAT, 2020) To have these achievements, thanks to the largeefforts from all stakeholders of tourism sectors The managers of tourism sectors haveidentified the tourism industry that was key to developing economics and meeting the

rising of demand from tourists (Bennett et al., 2009) To solve this challenge to meet a highexpectation of tourists, the tourism industry in Vietnam has previously assembled internal

and external resources to expand professional infrastructure such as accommodations andfood and beverage services to serve above 8.9 million international tourists and 25 milliondomestic guests (VNAT, 2020)

Table 1.1: Total tourism revenue (2000 — 2019)

Year Total tourism receipts (VND Growth rate (%)

Source: Vietnamese Tourism Government (2019)

The tourism industry in Vietnam has rapidly developed and achieved a high tourismrevenue from 2000 to 2019 (see Table 1.1) However, along with this development, the

tourism industry is facing a raft of challenges from the increased tourism industry and

uncertain environment based on the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic First, theinfrastructure could not supply well for the tourists because it was outdated, and lackedintegrity, the accessibility of tourist destinations and mountainous areas also limited, thetourism products lacked uniqueness, and lacked innovation in tourism products decreased

the tourists’ choosing services, so this issue has not handled well in the tourism industry in

Vietnam Second, the tourism industry lacked the professional human resources to work inthe hospitality and tourism industry, in the study by Dinh et al (2019) pointed out that the

tourism sectors in Vietnam were facing a limitation of high-quality human resourcesbecause the tourists have high demands for quality services that lead to a tough

competition advantage However, tourism activities and tourism products still stronglydepend on seasons, and the quality of services is not guaranteed during a peak period.Third, the budgets for tourism promotion were still limited, particularly compared with

other countries in the region; the funding of tourism promotion came from mainly state

budgets The promotional activities were not built professionally, promoting only theimage of tourism sectors, or building a brand was not enough to attract the tourists to comeback to purchase the services or book tours The promotion of tourism just only impartedbuilding a brand and unique products, the budget for scientific research and application ofscience technology was still limited in the tourism industry (ANT Consulting Co, 2016).The decreasing quality of service in the tourism industry cannot be avoided during thistime Especially, in 2020 was a hard time for the tourism industry that was caused by

breaking out the COVID-19 pandemic, which seriously affected the tourism industry in

Vietnam, aviation, and many other industries, the COVID-19 pandemic caused the tourismindustry in Vietnam to plunge when a series of accommodation establishments, restaurants,tourist attractions, and travel companies were lost These tourism sectors must suspend

operations and wait for the end of the pandemic About 10% of activities are held inmoderation to keep operating to handle debts with partners and customers All employees

work online at home, take unpaid leave, or terminate their labor contracts In addition,100% of tour guides were forced to quit their jobs Many hotels offered employees fullbreaks, stopped doing business, and put their properties up for sale Transportation

companies and entertainment areas such as amusement parks also had to suspend

operations because there were no visitors (VP Vietnam Plus, 2021) The COVID-19pandemic has wholly crippled the tourism industry in Vietnam Consequently, in early

2020 the number of international travelers arrived in Vietnam reduced by approximately 22percent, the revenue of the tourism industry dropped by around 143.6 billion VND, and thestaff in the tourism industry left their work accounted for 98 percent (Quang et al., 2022)

At that point, 90 to 95 percent of tourist firms had to suspend their operations (VP.Vietnam Plus, 2021) In the hospitality industry in Spain, Gonzalez-Torres et al (2021)

pointed out that the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak caused reduced revenue and createdliquidity issues for tourism operators, these scholars explore the roles of relationship

management in patterns of the hotel chain and the tourism supply chain agents to overcome

economic disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic The sectors of tourism affected

by the COVID-19 pandemic, lot of tourism sectors have been stopped, raising the question

of whether tourism organizations can survive after passing of the COVID-19 pandemic is

still unknown (Falk et al., 2021) Al-Omoush et al (2022) pointed out that COVID-19

pandemic created a risky and disorderly business environment and threatened the term survival of organizations, as well as the sustainability of business networks.Therefore, all tourism sectors must stand together to achieve mutual goals and overcomethe COVID-19 pandemic To escape from these challenges, the tourism sector effortsinvested all resources to pass these issues and maintain the tourism industry become a keyeconomic sector in Vietnam A study by Goffi et al (2022) pointed out that in thissituation, the organizations increase to build a new business strategy to maintain

long-operational efficiency, achieve mutual goals of performance, and remain competitive by

implementing commitment, coordination-well, frequent contact with each other in alliancerelationships (Goffi et al., 2022; Lim & Ok, 2021), the organizations engaged in IRs tocombine the resources, sharing information and knowledge, as well as it increased a speed

to launch new products to the market (Palmatier et al., 2007; Cropper et al., 2008; Agostini

& Nosella, 2015; Bierman & Koops, 2017), the priority of the tourism industry increased

the awareness of the cooperation and coordination in the IRs to provide better and safertourism products and services In recent years, many studies paid high attention to applying

new methods of alliance management practices in business networks as a potentialprotector that may lead organizations to overcome the risks, problems, and uncertain

environments caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, thereby the alliance relationshipsallowed their businesses to continue and develop (Al-Omoush et al., 2022; Gölgeci &Kuivalainen, 2020; Putra et al., 2020; Corréa et al., 2021) According to Cummings (1991),

a good relationship does not happen by itself, therefore, each stakeholder must be actively

involved in activities or tasks in IRs to build a good exchange relationship According toGélgeci and Kuivalainen (2020), this adaptive behavior for the organizations supported achange and participation in IRs to gain knowledge, plans, and ideas in alliance

relationships, thus striving for growth and survival through new methods of operation toovercome the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic through trust and commitment (Al-

Omoush et al., 2022; Palmatier et al., 2007) The impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic

produced many challenges for organizations in all industries, and the pandemic forcedorganizations to sense and respond with flexibility and frequency of interaction to find newways to survive (Al-Omoush et al., 2022; Meflinda et al., 2018), frequency of interactiondescribes the quality of the exchange relationships (Binder, P A 2019; Saukko et al., 2020;Turker, 2014) Based on the changes in communication and coordination, the organizationscan improve better business relationships by using advanced and supportive technology(e.i., MS Team, Zoom software, automatic consulting Chatbots; customer relationship

management-CRM; social media technologies) from their partners to achieve IORP

(AI-Omoush et al., 2022; Gélgeci & Kuivalainen, 2020) Itani et al (2020) examined how salesstaff use customer relationship management and social media technologies to affect buyer-seller information in exchange relationships, the findings reported that communicationsupports competitive information collection, product information, and buyer informationsharing In addition, organizations can utilize the availability of skills from their partners tolearn appropriate technological processes to produce new products or launch new services(Ode & Ayavoo, 2020) Furthermore, Oliver, (1990) stated that environmental uncertainty

is the opportunity that prompted managers to seek out inter-allied administrators who hadalike qualifications, IRs expect private companies to be connected to other firms, but these

companies keep their separate missions and try to cooperate in joint efforts (Oliver, 1990)

As Hodge et al (1998) stated that an organization might form exchange relationships with

other organizations to reduce uncertainty and thus gain greater control over the aspects ofthe macro-environment that are critical for the organization’s survival

In the existent literature of exchange relationships, often called inter-organizationalrelationships (IRs) Many scholars have highlighted the importance of exploring theexchange relationships and whether it can enhance IORP, when the organizations engaged

in IRs, the IRs applied in many fields such as in Spain's tourism clusters (Elche et al.,

2018) In the hospitality field (Medina-Muñoz & García-Falcón, 2000), the marketing field(Palmatier et al., 2007), the accounting field (Dekker, 2004), the relationship marketingfield (Pfajfar et al., 2022) Previous studies have found the antecedents of successful

exchange partnerships, including coordination, commitment, trust, quality communication,information sharing, and participation (Mohr & Spekman, 1994; Monczka et al., 1998;

Medina-Muñoz & García-Falcón, 2000) Furthermore, Palmatier et al (2006, 2007) found

commitment and trust positively affect IORP and were the critical mediating variables inIORP model, commitment and trust enhanced IORP based on increasing total sales, salesgrowth, cooperation, benefit expectations, capability to implement the objectives, and high

integrity (Yang, 2019; Ashnai, 2016; Morgan & Hunt, 1994; Pfajfar et al., 2022; Cote &

Latham, 2006) Moreover, commitment and trust played as a role of dependent factors tomeasure the strength of the relationship between frequency of interaction and

communication that highly affected trust (Palmatier et al., 2006, 2007) Gonzalez-Torres et

al (2021) conducted a qualitative approach to build a direct sales model to overcome

epidemic outbreaks based on trust, commitment, and coordination evolution towardrelationship management between hotel chains and tour operators in Spain Cote andLatham (2006) also defined trust and commitment play as the mediating variables that lead

to IOR performance The symmetric trust and commitment will reduce the uncertainty

resulting from opportunism and minimize the demand for extensive control procedures(Morgan & Hunt,1994; Birnberg, 2004), maximizing relationship quality in business-to-business (B2B) companies in exchange relationships (Pfajfar et al., 2022) Similarly, Elche

et al (2018) contributed to exploring the literature of IRs, they discovered the influence ofrelationships with “the core and peripheral partners in clustered firms,” but their study did

not analyze the impacts of the relationships between variables Notably, based on the need

to expand our knowledge of potential constructs of IORP, Medina-Munoz, and

Garcia-Falcon (2000) suggested that for a better understanding of successful IRs, researchersshould add new factors such as flexibility should be investigated It lacked research to

analyze the factors of AMP and IORP through trust and commitment (Al-Omoush et al.,2022; Raza-Ullah & Kostis, 2020; Uddin et al., 2020) through trust and commitment In astudy by Uddin et al (2020), the authors developed a synthesis coordination theory by

combining supply network theory and TCT The results showed that the hybrid relational

context has a positive correlation with capabilities and methods and leads to efficiency ininter-organizational cost management; a weak point is that this study did not explore theindirect influences among these factors Moreover, Yeh et al (2020) suggested that inter-

organizational trust did not have a direct or significant impact on IRs and failed to predictthe relationship between trust and IRs; however, they found a positive impact of

relationship trust on IRs through the mediation of stakeholders’ commitment factor In

addition, Ali et al (2021) integrated international joint venture management practicesbased on TCT to understand the method that improved IORP They found that trust,communication, and culture of organizations in exchange relationships had a positive

effect on improving performance of collaboration.TCT is a lens of structural management

practices, and the results also found that there were no positive effects among thesestructural management practices when they used TCT to explore the performance of

international joint venture management Based on the previous studies discussed above, the

results remain negative effects and non-significant, and another weak point is that thesestudies did not investigate the combined role of coordination, participation, frequency ofinteraction, flexibility, and commitment in structural management practices reducingopportunism and enhance the performance of collaboration (Ali et al., 2021) Based on the

previous studies, their results are a springboard for our research on travel companies and

indirect effects among these constructs Many scholars have a call for further research toexplore the relationship among these constructs in other phenomena to understand the

connections of these factors in an uncertain environment in a specific context that is a

limitation Hence, the IRs need more studies to advance research on the IORP model andunderstand the behavior of members in IRs in the tourism field Besides, the study of IRsprovided a greater understanding of how each factor of AMP, directly and indirectly,

affects high trust, commitment, and IORP To address the research gaps foregoing, this

study aims to identify what factors of AMP affect, commitment, trust, and IORP andconduct an empirical study it validates the proposed hypotheses by testing the direct andindirect effect relationship between factors of AMP and trust, factors of AMP and

commitment, and factors of AMP and IORP toward the exchange relationship between

travel companies and their business partners in the tourism industry in Vietnam context

1.2 Rationales for the Research of Inter-organizational Relationship

The field of inter-organizational relationships (IRs) was applied in several SocialScience disciplines, such as economics, strategy, and organizational and managementresearch, IRs have become a research topic of substantial importance and have gotten big

pay attention from researchers (Pfajfar et al., 2022; Gonzalez-Torres et al., 2021; Itani et

al., 2020; Yang et al., 2019; Mohr & Spekman, 1994; Monczka et al., 1998; Munoz & García-Falcón, 2000; Dekker, 2004; Xinping Shi & Ziqi Liao, 2013; Palmatier etal., 2006, 2007; Nicolaou, 2011; Elche et al., 2018) These scholars have explored theantecedence of successful IRs and provided support for relationship marketing, strategicsupplier alliances, supply chain in dyad relationships (Palmatier et al., 2007), business-to-business (B2B) relationships (Pfajfar et al., 2022), dealers and manufacturers toward IRs(Mohr & Spekman, 1994), the hotels and travel agents or buyer-supplier dyadic

Medina-relationships (Medina-Munoz & Garcia-Falcon, 2000)

The literature on IRs is broad, and many scholars integrated and explored some

aspects of IRs to improve their effectiveness of IRs In 1994, Morgan and Hunt examinedthe effects of antecedents on inter-organizational relationship success, the results proved

trust and commitment are the main key mediating variables of the relational exchanges in

the relationship marketing model (Pfajfar et al., 2022), their study pointed out that createjoint relationships with stakeholders in the same field could give rise to opportunities forexpanding new markets, the ability to deliver diverse and quality products, an enhancedbusiness reputation and competitive advantages from an extended economic dimension and

increase productivity and sustainable development after participating the relationships withpartners (Bhat, 2004; Morgan & Hunt, 1994; Pfajfar et al., 2022) Many scholars havesuccessfully found the determinants of IR effectiveness such as commitment, trust,

dependence, and relational norms, and applied a TCT (Hibbard et al., 2001; Palmatier et

al., 2006), trust and commitment build a relationship quality in B2B oriented companies inPoland (Pfajfar et al., 2022) Other scholars found that the motives for firms to establish

relationships with partners are relationship marketing, business success, trust, andcommunication (Gummesson, 2017; Larentis et al., 2018), the main driving force to join

members of IRs is to get benefits, exchange resources from the partners (Larentis et al.,2018) In research model by Mohr and Spekman (1994) focused on understanding “thecharacteristics of partnership success between manufacturers and dealers in the US” and

found that coordination, commitment, trust, communication quality, information sharing,

and participation were significant differences and predicted the relationship success InDecision Sciences Journal, Monczka et al (1998) explored a study “Success factors instrategic supplier alliances”, the alliance relationships have received a bid considerableattention in the academic, the managerial press, and the buyer-seller supply chain alliances,

Monczka et al (1998) found a gap that some questions have not answered yet such as what

motivations of alliance relationships were, how alliances are developed, what are the keysuccess factors of alliance relationships, and what the benefits to achieve the mutual goal

in alliance relationships Monczka et al (1998) found that factors such as trust,coordination, commitment, interdependence, communication behaviors (information

quality, participation, information sharing), and conflict factors (persuasion, joint problemsolving, smoothing, domination) were used to decide the manages to develop supplieralliance relationships (Monczka et al., 1998), the study by Monczka et al (1998) had

contributed to finding the factors of the alliance relationships lead to successful supplier

alliances based on trust, coordination, interdependence, communication behaviors(information quality, participation, information sharing) (Itani et al., 2020; Gonzalez-Torres et al., 2021; Hazen et al., 2021), and conflict factor (persuasion, joint problem

solving, smoothing, domination), these factors were positive significantly associated withalliance relationship success However, Monczka et al (1998) found that there was a weak

significance and a poor to predict the relationships between commitment (commitment tosupport the resources to the partners) and alliance relationship success.

In the study of Medina-Munoz and García-Falcón (2000) who adapted a research

model from Mohr and Spekman (1994), their study identified “the antecedents of a

successful relationship between travel agencies and hotels in the US”, their studyestablished that commitment factor, trust factor, coordination factor, interdependencefactor, behavioral communication factor, and participation factor provided support IReffectiveness (Medina-Munoz & García-Falcón, 2000; Gonzalez-Torres et al., 2021; Mohr

& Spekman, 1994) However, they evaluated the successful IRs gaps and gave somerecommendations to improve the research model of successful IRs, their study found mainfactors had a positive significant impact on successful IRs and applied this research model

within business-to-business companies (B2B), there was still limited to apply flexibility

and frequency of interaction factors that may achieve the effective application in IRsmodel, their research suggested that in research model of successful IRs are lack offlexibility factor and frequency of interaction that reduces the IR effectiveness because

flexibility factor and frequency of interaction are the tools use in the uncertainenvironment, which helps organization can change plan or build a new procedure

Palmatier et al (2007) focus on “A Comparative Longitudinal Analysis of TheoreticalPerspectives of IORP, a B2B relationship between a company (seller) and its localdistributor agents (customers) in the US” and found that commitment, and trust positively

affect relational outcomes The frequency of interaction and communication highly affects

the mediating variable of trust Cote et al (2016) focused on “Trust and commitment:intangible drivers of inter-organizational performance in US healthcare industry” andfound that trust and commitment affect direct and indirect performance outcomes, and

communication has influenced on mediating trust A study in Spain about IR factors

appears to be closely linked Elche et al (2018), they have explored the effects of IRs inheritage tourism clusters, their study only contributed to the literature on IRs, but it did notjointly analyze the effect relationship among these factors These scholars have highlighted

the importance of IORP in different fields and different objectives Some evidence pointedout the antecedents of successful partnerships based on coordination, commitment, trust

(González-Torres et al., 2021; Pfajfar et al., 2022), quality communication focused on

sharing information (Itani et al., 2020; Pfajfar et al., 2022), and participation (Mohr &Spekman, 1994; Medina-Mufioz & García-Falcón, 2000) The study of Palmatier et al.(2007) has found that commitment and trust positively affect IORP and are the critical

mediating variables of increasing total sales, sales growth, cooperation, benefit

expectations, capability to implement the objectives and high integrity (Yang et al., 2019;Ashnai et al., 2016; Morgan & Hunt, 1994; Pfajfar et al., 2022) or dependence factors tomeasure the strength of the relationships between the frequency of interaction andcommunication highly affects trust (Medina-Mufioz & García-Falcón, 2000) Thesymmetric trust and commitment will reduce the uncertainty resulting from opportunismand minimize the demand for extensive control procedures (Morgan & Hunt, 1994 Pfajfar

et al., 2022; Birnberg, 2004), maximize relationship quality in IRs (Pfajfar et al., 2022)

Some research gaps existed in IR literature that have not explored and tested the

relationships between flexibility and IORP, frequency of interaction and IORP, theoutcomes of these factors may increase common ways for firms to find ways to change inuncertain environments and maintain exchange relationships for competitive advantage.The second gap is that previous research just placed these factors as the role of

independent variables such as commitment, coordination, trust, communication, and

participation significantly affected the success of inter-organizational partnerships (Mohr

& Spekman, 1994; Monczka et al., 1998; Medina-Munoz & García-Falcón, 2000) As

Elche et al (2018) contributed to the literature on IRs by building the concept of IRs incore and peripheral partners in clustered firms, they have not conducted an apparatus for an

empirical study to validate of this theory Regarding IRs with core partners focus on socialinteraction and network density, which are often related to their partners, know theirpartners in a personal way, has close social relationships with their partners The networkdensity based on the information and resources exchanges are usually similar with itspartners, frequent of interaction, provide useful information Regarding IRs with peripheralpartners focused on the areas of expertise of the partners, different backgrounds andexperiences, abilities, and skills to complement each other The third gap is that these

studies did not jointly analyze the effect relationship among these factors (Mohr &Spekman, 1994; Monczka et al., 1998; Medina-Munoz & Garcia-Falcon, 2000; Elche et

al., 2018) Gonzalez-Torres et al (2021) conducted a qualitative approach to build a direct

sales model based on trust, commitment, and coordination evolution towards relationshipmanagement between hotel chains and tour operators in Spain To fill research gaps andkeeping suggestions of Medina-Munoz and Garcia-Falcon (2000) for a better

understanding of IRs successful, the effect of additional factors should be examined in

future research such as flexibility of the relationship (Harrigan & Newman, 1990), andFrequency of interaction (Schmidt & Kochan, 1977; Hall et al., 1977) to expand theperformance of IRs model Another gap is that these studies did not apply well the theories

of IR success, so this study filled in these research gaps and combined two importanttheories, including RDT and TCT for deeper insight and better explanations of the researchmodel IORP, this study used TCT (Williamson,1991) to outline factors of flexibility andfrequency of interaction under which travel companies administer transactions through

alliance management practices, and market tourism-based on exchange relationships with

one another (Child, 1972; March & Simon, 1958; Pfeffer & Salancik, 1978; Ali Shahzad etal., 2021) RDT is used to outline factors: participation, communication, coordination Inaddition, this study is to investigate the mediating of trust, and commitment to yield IORP,

and TCT is used to anchor the factors: trust, commitment, flexibility, and frequency ofinteraction, to fill the research gap, this study was adopted the factors of AMP from

previous research (Aulakh et al., 1996; De Jong & Woolthuis, 2008; Palmatier et al., 2007)and combined the mediating role of trust and commitment into the IORP model, so in this

study, the trust and commitment are the key mediating variables to explore the effectrelationship between factors of AMP (communication, coordination, flexibility, frequency

of interaction, participation) and IORP

Therefore, the need for the study to expand more constructs of the IORP model tobetter understand the alliance relationships lead to successful IOR, based on the limitationsfrom previous studies and suggestions from (Medina-Munoz & Garcia-Falcon, 2000;Gonzalez-Torres et al., 2021; Morgan & Hunt, 1994; Pfajfar et al., 2022; Palmatier et al.,2007; Ashmai et al., 2016; Kang et al., 2018; Ashnai et al., 2016; Yang et al., 2019), so thisstudy added two factors (frequency of interaction and flexibility) to achieve a more

comprehensive model of IORP (Medina-Munoz & García-Falcón, 2000), and combined

two theories, including RDT (Pfeffer & Salancik, 1978) and TCT (Williamson 1975-85)for deeper insight and better explanation of IORP model in travel companies and their

partners in Vietnam Context Furthermore, in the Vietnam context, it lacked a study toexplore the IORP between travel companies and their partners (e.g., accommodation,restaurants, transportation companies, tourist attractions, shopping centers, and other travel

agencies) To fill this gap, this study identified the relationships between factors of AMP

and IORP through the mediation of trust and commitment (Ali et al., 2021; Mohr & Puck,2013), this study used TCT and RDT are the lens to understand the role trust, and

commitment play in different causal ordering in the IORP model, its role is to predict the

direct and indirect relationship between factors of AMP and IORP in travel companies and

other tourism sectors (Ali et al., 2021; Palmatier et al., 2007; Gibson et al., 2002;

Medina-Munoz & García-Falcón, 2000; Mohr & Spekman, 1994; Turker, 2014; Pfajfar et al.,2022) This study proposed a research framework for the IORP model (see Figure 2.2), it

includes coordination, communication, flexibility, frequency of interaction, participation,

commitment, and trust

This study needs to be conducted because of the lack of research on thephenomenon of AMP and IORP in travel companies and other tourism sectors in the

context of Vietnam; this research identifies the influence of AMP, trust, commitment, andIORP in understanding the behavior of travel companies and their suppliers based on what

elements of AMP that drive the members trust, commitment to carry out their duties andshare resources lead to enhance the success of the inter-organizational collaboration Thesecond contribution is that our study fills a gap present in previous studies by exploring the

relationships between factors of AMP and trust, factors of AMP and commitment, factors

of AMP and IORP as well as the indirect effects of factors of AMP and IORP via trust andcommitment, which was not examined in previous studies (Uddin et al., 2020; Ali et al.,2021; Palmatier et al., 2007; Gibson et al., 2002; Medina-Munoz & García-Falcón, 2000;

Mohr & Spekman, 1994; Turker, 2014; Pfajfar et al., 2022) Finally, IORP is the main

solution improve and solve the issues caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, which affectedthe tourism industry in Vietnam; based on the results of this study, managers in the tourismsector can change their activities and build new strategies to develop the tourism Thisresearch contributes the theoretical and practical implications for the managers in the

tourism sectors for future research

1.3 Research Objectives

The purpose of this study is to identify the relationship between factors of AMPand IORP through the mediating roles of trust and commitment between t travel companiesand their partners This studyinvestigated to examined what factors of AMP affect trust,commitment, and IORP between travel companies and their partner theory of TCT and

RDT are the lens to build a more comprehensive research model of IORP to explore the

direct and indirect effect relationships among the factors of AMP and IORP through trustand commitment The main research objectives (ROs) of this study are as follows:

= ROs 1: To explore why travel companies build up their relationship with others

" ROs 2: To explore how strong the effect of each factor of alliance management

practices on the IORP

" ROs 3: To identify which factors of alliance management practices affectcommitment toward the relationship of travel companies

" ROs 4: To identify which factors of alliance management practices affect trust

toward the relationship of travel companies

= ROs 5: To identify which factors of alliance management practices affect IORP

= ROs 6: To confirm the relationship between trust and commitment toward therelationship of travel companies

= ROs 7: To identify mediating roles of trust and commitment toward the relationship

1.4 Research Questions

To implement the research objectives, this research aims to answer the researchquestions (RQ) as follows:

RQI Why do the travel companies build up their relationship with others?

RQ2 How strong is the effect of each factor of alliance management practices on

RQS To what extent are the factors of alliance management practices affect IORP?RQ6 To what extent does trust in the relationship affect the commitment of travelcompanies and their partners?

RQ7 To what extent is the IORP indirectly affected by alliance management

practices through the mediation of high Trust and Commitment?

1.5 Contribution of the Study

1.5.1 Theoretical contribution

Firstly, the theoretical contribution of this study is to build a more comprehensivetheoretical model of the characteristics of IORP, including trust, commitment,communication, coordination, flexibility, frequency of interaction, and participation, it alsoprovided an updated synthesis of the IORP literature in tourism industry (Elche et al.,

2018; Yang et al., 2019; González-Torres et al., 2021; Pfajfar et al., 2022) Secondly, theresults of a study to test research hypotheses drawn from a conceptual foundation by usingmixed methods (Pikkemaat et al., 2020; Creswell & Clark, 2017) by conducting both in-

depth interviews and an empirically examining the factors of AMP and performance of IRsbetween travel companies and their partners, and it contributed to expanding a literatureAMP, IORP to understand deepest IRs in travel companies in Vietnam because IORPresearch was dominated many studies in Western countries This study developed IORPmodel, including trust, commitment, communication, coordination, flexibility, frequency

of interaction, and participation, it qualitatively evaluated and adjusted to better suitableperspectives and the culture and business environment of the tourism industry in Vietnam

Thirdly, this is the first study that provided new insights into the factors of AMPinfluence the performance of inter-organizational relationships through mediating trust andcommitment between travel companies and their partners (restaurants, accommodation,

transportation companies, tourist destinations), because previous studies just explored theB2B relationships to explore a successful of IOR and were inconsistent results due to

mediating factors that various studies have not explored Fourth, the contribution of thisstudy used RDT and TCT are the lens of the IORP model to analyze and test the

hypothesis that the existence of default hypothesis is important and helpful for theory

testing, which sets this study apart from many recent empirical investigations that have

framed from previous research (Mohr & Spekman, 1994; Medina-Munoz & Garcia-Falcon,2000; Aulakh et al., 1996; Gibson et al., 2002) Finally, this study contributed to the stream

of inter-organizational relationship research by determining the relationship betweenfactors of AMP and trust, commitment, and IORP The findings of this study were

potentially supported by a more profound knowledge of effective IRs for managers oftravel companies and other tourism sectors in Vietnam to foster higher trust and

commitment to lead to IORP in their firms with their partners, it achieved the plausible,

insightful, and relevant results in Vietnam tourism through highlighting the importance oftourism collaboration and found the reasons of forming the relationships and suggestsmanagement strategies

1.5.2 Practical contribution

This study provided further insight for the managers of tourism sectors as well as

government and policymakers to apply practically these concepts to build sustainabledevelopment for tourism recovery or design their strategies To improve the effectiveness

of inter-organizational relationships The results of this study showed the important factors

of AMP lead to IORP to travel companies and their partners because the results bringinsight into the relationship between factors of AMP factors and IORP focus on

commitment, trust, coordination, and frequency of interaction The results of the empiricalstudy may provide some predicted outcomes in the future for travel companies to use as

important information to make decisions and build strategies, and it was useful in makingdecisions what the most important factors to focus on and whether to create or continue a

relationship is strategically advantageous, as well as it improved the success of ongoingrelationship between the travel companies and their business partners The managers oftravel companies can use the findings of this study to improve and associate with their

business partners in the tourism industry The findings could be a foundation for other

researchers to implement a similar model in other industries or to expand the currentpattern of antecedents The organizations founded alliance relationships to achieveefficient, professional, and risk-sharing goals in an uncertain environment Moreover, thisstudy provided further insight for tourism managers as well as government andpolicymakers to apply the findings of this study in practical management and buildsustainable development for the recovery position of the tourism industry from the operatic

management and design their strategies The practitioners can use the IORP model forfurther research in different fields to better understand inter-organizational relationship

patterns.

1.6 Scope of the Research

Concern about the tourism industry increasing rapidly and scarcity of resources hasbecome a central issue in decision-making to gain a relationship between travel companiesand their business partners to pass the challenges because of scarcity resources With thatoverall purpose, this research employed travel companies as a case study to examine therelationships between their business partner’s engagements This study investigated onlytravel companies as focal organizations managing that have relationships with their

business partners For the research purpose, the criteria for choosing the travel companies

that have established inter-organizational relationships with accommodations, food andbeverage services, restaurants, transportation companies, attractive destinations, andcultural/social events for at least two years The travel companies were selected mainlybecause they are the primary sectors in the tourism industry

For research purposes, this study aims to examine the travel companies that are

subjects of this study, and this study conducts in-depth interviews and an empiricalexamination with seven components of AMP and IORP, to explore whether there is a

relationship among these factors of AMP and trust, factors of AMP and commitment,factors of AMP and IORP, and it also predict the indirect relationship between factors of

AMP and IORP through the mediating variables of trust and commitment among the travelcompanies and their business partners (accommodations, food and beverage services,transportation companies, attractive destinations, cultural/social events) The research

determined the extent to which the seven components of AMP and IORP identified by

travel companies have connected their business partners Based on previous studies, it stillexists research gap, the purpose of this study to predict the direct and indirect relationshipbetween factors of AMP and IORP via trust and commitment , this study used mixed

methods approach combines qualitative and quantitative data collection and analysisprocedures , the qualitative data was conducted by interviews, it took 60 minutes to one

hour thirty minutes, the interviews were conducted from July to September 2019, and the

quantitative data was collected by a questionnaire with five Likert-Scale instruments,thequestionnaire would be delivered directly to travel companies in Vietnam from December

2019 to April 2021

1.5 Research Methodology

This study employed an exploratory sequential mixed method that combines a

qualitative approach and quantitative approach to collect data and analysis in a sequence ofphases (Creswell & Clark, 2017; McCrudden et al., 2019; Pikkemaat et al., 2020), themixed methods achieve the plausible, insightful, and relevant results that can address both

exploratory and confirmatory questions and minimizes any potential biases of every singleapproach (Creswell, 2003; Pikkemaat et al., 2020) It can balance between depth and width

knowledge of the phenomenon to expand the interpretative this phenomenon fieldqualitative, then from the results of the qualitative approach to build a questionnaire toaccomplish quantitative method to answer the research questions by testing hypotheses in

quantitative approach (Collins et al., 2006), mixed methods are aimed to create a better

understanding of research problems of the surrounding society and gaining comprehension

of how individuals, group, and institutions act and affect one another better than eitherapproach alone (Sogunro, 2001), this study used a mixed method that can capitalize on the

strengths and reduce the weaknesses of both designs to gain a deeper understanding of the

research problems (Johnson & Onwuegbuzie, 2004; Creswell & Clark, 2017) Based on theoverview of existing literature and research models from previous studies, then this studybuilt a research model, this study proceeded in two stages

In phase one-qualitative approach To explore whether antecedents of IORP and

components of AMP in this study manifest in the context of travel companies in Vietnam,this study accomplished in-depth interviews through a semi-structured interview with aprotocol designed, interviews aimed to gather opinions and perspectives of participants

about the research problems that were explored to probe and gain manifest components ofAMP, including commitment, trust, coordination, communication, flexibility, participation,

frequency of interaction, whether has any effects among these components on IORP Theresearcher conducted a self-monitoring interview by contacting the potential participants

by telephone and email using personal contacts and references The in-depth interviewswere conducted with the managers, vice managers, and sales managers of travel companies

at their company & coffee shops, the duration took 60 minutes to one hour thirty minutes,

the interviews and the answers were recorded, and take note the main ideas, then the

qualitative data were transcribed from Vietnamese to English and then data analysis bythematic analysis method (Fereday & Muir-Cochrane, 2006) Thematic analysis was used in

this all the interview transcripts were sorted, highlighted sections of the text, and came up

with coding, the data then identified the patterns among themes, next, the data was summed

up by generating themes, and this studydefined the items from data and put the items intonamed themes The results addressed eight themes in turn, the findings explained the main

takeaways and the analysis answered the research question Then, the results of qualitativedata were in the quantitative approach to make sure the data were strong and enhanced theunderstanding of the interpretation of the outcomes (Creswell et al., 2007), while it also

provided or disprovided theories regarding the areas of this study With the qualitative

phase, its role to gathering opinions, and experiences of seniors of travelcompanies/participants in this study, it also understood the concepts of IORP, factors ofAMP, trust, and commitment, these dimensions manifested in the travel companies, the

qualitative phase is used to gather in-depth insights into a problem of travel companies and

their business partners, it gather generate new ideas from the seniors of travel companiesfor building a research model and confirming dimensions of IORP, and AMP factors.Moreover, the role of qualitative phase improves the validity and reliability of the content

of measurement scales, then build a questionnaire survey to collect data in quantitative

phase

In phase two, this study used a quantitative approach, from the results of thequalitative phase, IORP components were developed from the interviews in the qualitative

sta, a questionnaire was built and conducted to collect quantitative data, this approach was

used to confirm the main themes of trust, commitment, coordination, communication,participation, flexibility, frequency of interaction, and IORP the dimensions of sevencomponents of AMP were developed from previous studies and were confirmed from theinterviews in the qualitative stage, this study used a questionnaire instrument to collect

quantitative data One of the most well-known tools for assessing research hypothesese is a

quantitative approach Plonsky and Gass (2011) stated that the researcher uses aquantitative method to minimizes the impact of bias of research hypotheses, it may affectthe research hypotheses through statistical analysis techniques From the literature review

and adapted the empirical study and refined 48 items of eight constructs, this study

conducted a pre-test with seventeen experts in tourism fields to validate the questionnaireand evaluate if a questionnaire survey needs to be revised and clearly understood or not

This study used Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM)

(Hair et al., 2017) with Smart-PLS software version 3.0 (Ringle et al., 2014) to evaluate the

research model, the PLS-SEM is a famous technique to conduct an empirical study, it oftenuses to explore the relationship among the constructs, it presents the structural path model(Hair et al., 2017), the structural path model has described a research model, analyze the

relationship among these factors of a research model, it also points out the specific how the

latent variables are related to other variables and the effects of the dependent variables,which will provide the opportunity to estimate complex cause and effect relationships ThePLS-SEM has a few advantages in predicting research orientation and reaching to

maximum explanation the variance of endogenous variables, if the theoretical backgroundswere less rigid it would be better to use PLS-SEM (Hair et al., 2012) In addition, Doyle et

al (2009) stated that to combine with the mixed method design, the partial least squareapproach is simpler and supports the opportunity to analyze the data in better detail

1.6 The Structure of the Dissertation

This dissertation has been divided into five chapters The first chapter deals with thetourism industry background, research overview of inter-organizational relationships, theneed for the research, research objectives, research questions, the scope of the research,and some potential contributions of this study Chapter Two begins by laying out the

theoretical dimensions of the research, summarizes the relevant literature review of theIORP, and proposes the hypotheses, including IORP, components of AMP, including trust,

commitment, coordination, communication, participation, flexibility, frequency ofinteraction, and two theories of RDT and TCT, and find a research gap from previous

studies and propose the hypotheses and build a research modelIORP model d Chapter

Three is concerned with the methodology including mixed methods (qualitative approach,quantitative approach), with the exploratory sequential research design, research process,sampling design, target population, measurement of constructs, thematic analysis, research

instrument, data collection procedure, data analyses, reliability and validity, statistical

techniques of PLS-SEM Chapter four analyses the results of interviews and empiricalstudy, qualitative results undertaken by using thematic analysis, it compiled and evaluatedseven themes from the qualitative data, from the results of qualitative to build aquestionnaire, quantitative phase applied PLS-SEM with SmartPLS 3.0 software toestimate the structural equation models and to test research hypotheses Finally, chapterfive presents the findings of the research, and it discusses the findings and compare themwith previous studies, contribution, and implications in both theoretical and practical,

limitations and suggestions for further research

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW

Chapter 2 presents a review of previous literature on research themes It begins

with the theoretical foundation of RDT and TCT, a literature review of IORP, and factors

of AMP Moreover, it discusses previous research models of successful organizational relationships and prior findings on the relationship between factors of AMP

imter-and trust, commitment, imter-and the IORP model, proposes the research hypotheses, imter-and builds

a research model

2.1 Theoretical Foundation

Throughout the years, many theories have been developed to explain IRs as

“coordination and control issues” (Rossignoli & Ricciardi, 2015) Several researcherspresented many widely used theories on IRs that were explored in the literature: the agencytheory (Rossignoli & Ricciardi, 2015), the social exchange theory (Ali, Khalid et al., 2021;Blau, 2017; Ali, Larimo, 2021), the transaction cost theory (Uddin et al., 2020; Morgan &Hunt, 1994; Pfajfar et al., 2022; Das & Teng, 1998; Barringer & Harrison, 2000; Medina-Munoz & García-Falcón, 2000; Palmatier, et al., 2007); resource dependence theory

(Pfeffer & Salancik, 1978; Ali Shahzad et al., 2021) These theories provided importantassumptions and contributions to the study of IRs and each theory make predictions related

to when organizations are going to be formed However, this study just used two majortheories including TCT (Williamson, 1975, 1985, 1991) and RDT (Pfeffer & Salancik,1978) address the reasons why organizations participated in closer business in exchange

relationships, the main assumption of RDT and TCT pointed out the reason that IRs were

established to reduce the behavior of opportunism and bounded rationality”, moreover, thetheory of RDT and TCT are the assumption that, when organizations gain under theappropriate circumstances and environmental conditions, strategy alliances of the networkwill be successful Yet, previous studies pointed out that in the uncertain environment and

scarce resources, organizations seek to join in IRs to control the critical resources and

manage aspects of the organization's business network interactions to pursue the

organizations’ goals (Rossignoli & Ricciardi, 2015), each theory explained IRs in adifferent perspective and used in different environment to develop a suitable researchmodel with the researcher’ perspectives and research purposes In 2020, the tourism

industry in Vietnam faced the COVID-19 pandemic that destroyed completely all tourism

sectors, this was an uncertain environment brought by the pandemic affection, so thetourism industry could not control issue and handle this issue alone, the IRs viewed as

“coordination and control issues”, and TCT and RDT address the reasons why and whatdrive the members of the IRs will be successful if they gain under the appropriateresources, circumstances, and environmental conditions, so TCT and RDT drive businessobjectives to evolve from cost reduction and operational efficiency under uncertainconditions (Mohr & Spekman, 1994; González-Torres et al., 2021) Therefore, these

theories play a backbone to underpin the IORP model and a bridge of AMP and IORP

through the trust and commitment gap to predict how well the business of IORperformance is achieved between travel companies and their partnership., this study usedTCT and RDT to explain and apply them in travel companies’ context to explore the travel

companies’ behavior with their business partners in inter-organizational relationships toenhance business success, the IORP factors, are based on the notion of what factors lead to

success, are determined, in the past based on what factors of AMP lead to enhance hightrust, commitment, and IORP to enhance the ability to increase the performance of IRs toprovide better service to customers, the theory of TCT and RDT are used to improve the

issues for the tourism industry in Vietnam Specifically, for alliance business between

travel companies and their business partners (tourism sectors) These theories are commonconsiderations of the organization as an open system and the use of uncertain environment

to explain the reason and the motive for IR formation In addition, the objectives of this

study are to identify the factors of AMP directly affect trust, the factors of AMP directly

affect commitment, the factors of AMP directly affect IORP, and finally, this studyexamines the factors of AMP indirectly affect IORP through mediating variables of inter-organizational trust and commitment Therefore, TCT (Williamson, 1991) and RDT(Pfeffer & Salancik, 1978) are the lenses for the theoretical framework for the IORP modelfor deeper insights and better explanation for the IORP model to offer descriptivesurroundings, recognize improvements, and build up an integrated the outcomes to explain

the relationships between IORP and each type of AMP factors The RDT views IORP as analliance relationship and their role is to share resources and support members of alliances

by supplying scarce resources, products, and services, especially in uncertain environments

where the members of the alliance must tighten communication, coordination well, and

participate in deciding to help each other to overcome the risks (Pfeffer & Salancik, 1978)

In addition, alliances seek to control the crucial elements of their business field to achievemutual goals In TCT, the organizations enter IRs to minimize the transaction costs among

organizations and their partners when they interact together and increase operative

efficiency (Williamson, 1991) The organizations founded alliances to achieve efficient,professional, and risk-sharing goals in an uncertain environment According to RDT, theorganizations engaged in IRs because of their needs for external resources and control of

the critical resources that are significant to the organizations (Pfeffer & Salancik, 1978)

2.1.2 Transaction Cost Theory (TCT)

TCT is utilized to explain the behavior of IRs in business, especially in B2Brelationships, and alliance relationships TCT was defined as “the costs of running theeconomic system of firms” (Williamson, 1979; Rossignoli & Ricciardi, 2015), the costs

lead a decision-maker to choose to use the organizational structure or the external sourcesfrom the market, the organizations can compare the transaction costs with internal

production costs Therefore, the costs are the main reasons to plan for outsourcing or theorganization produces products/ services by itself It focuses on how a firm shouldorganize its extent of working out activities to reduce transaction costs and minimize the

sum of its production costs, bilateral expectations, and reliance (Ashnai et al., 2016; Heide &

John, 1992) When organizations engage in IRs that can reduce uncertainty caused bymarket failure, TCT shows that IRs can reduce costs associated with establishing ahierarchy among organizations like internal transaction costs and external transaction costs

(Beamish & Banks, 1987; Dyer, 1997; Hennart, 1988; Madhok & Tallman, 1998;

Williamson, 1975, 1985, 1991) TCT emerged from work on behavioral assumptions incase the contract is incomplete because the transaction parties could not completely writedetails covering all possible issues that may happen in the future on the agreements

(Williamson, 1985), the transaction parties just focused on bounded rationality such as