Customer Relationship Management (CRM) in small and medium tourism enterprises: A dynamic capabilities perspective

Abstract

Purpose – The objective of this study is to develop an integrated framework incorporating Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and Dynamic capabilities (DC) together for Tourism Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs). Design – We reconcile theories from strategic management and marketing literatures to form an unifying framework of sources of performance differentials as the theoretical background. Successful factors for the framework including specific CRM processes, two different approaches in DC and specific business processes are defined. Methodology – The framework is tested on data collected from 111 SMEs in tourism industry in Vietnam using Partial Least Square Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM). Approach – This study approaches CRM processes at the customer facing level and attempts to discover its effects to performance at firm-level analysis. Findings – The results show that the interrelationships suggested by the framework are supported. Especially, the mechanisms of how CRM processes can influence the customer value and financial performance are explored. Originality of the research - The different effects of different DC approaches also suggested useful insights how to develop use them for tourism SMEs. There also has been an emerging urgency for the framework in the practice given the fact that there hasn’t been any of it in previous researches yet. © 2018 University of Rijeka. All rights reserved.