Cooperation in the Swiss Hotel Industry: The Entrepreneur’s Setup

Abstract

This master thesis identifies entrepreneurial prerequisites (the entrepreneur’s setup) which positively influence the formation of cooperative relationships in the Swiss hotel industry. The review of entrepreneurship and cooperation literature shows that the operational setup of an entrepreneur needs to be combined with his or her personal setup. Furthermore, environmental and cooperation specific characteristics complete the entrepreneur’s setup. In the empirical part, interviews were conducted in order to identify the elaborated entrepreneur’s setup in the Swiss hotel industry. It was found that the cooperative entrepreneur is well-educated, innovative and socially active within his or her network. Operational factors such as the network position of the hotel (prior cooperative relationships), are an influencing aspect for the establishment of cooperation. On a cooperation level, shared values and similarity are more important than the reputation of the cooperation partner. Interestingly, no major differences between rural and city hotels were discovered. With its qualitative-explorative approach, the thesis opens the horizon for further research in the fields of entrepreneurship, cooperation and the Swiss hotel industry.