Browsing by Author "Bianco, Simone"

Now showing 1 - 5 of 5
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    Disruptor Recognition and Market Value of Incumbent Firms: Airbnb and the Lodging Industry
    Bianco, Simone; Zach, Florian J.; Singal, Manisha (Sage, 2022-04-03)
    Although Airbnb debuted in 2008, incumbent lodging firms did not fully recognize it as a legitimate competitor for several years. However, as Airbnb made inroads into the accommodation business, hotel firms and their investors started to take notice and to legitimize its disruptive role. In this paper, we investigate investors’ awareness of the disruptor Airbnb as a competitor of incumbent lodging firms. Specifically, we assess the effect of awareness on incumbent hotel management and hotel property owner firms. Employing an event study methodology, our analysis finds that Airbnb performance milestones negatively affect incumbents’ market value. This research contributes to our understanding of the role played by investors and financial analysts in shaping competitive markets by legitimizing an industry disruptor and by spurring competitive action among incumbent firms.
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    Dual-Branded Hotels: Resource-based entry strategies in agglomerated markets
    Bianco, Simone; Singal, Manisha; Zach, Florian J.; Nicolau, Juan Luis (Elsevier, 2023-04)
    Despite the growing importance of dual-branded hotels, research on this trend is lacking. This study investigates the effect of resource-based entry strategies for dual-branded hotels vis-à-vis incumbent market competition on performance. Using a hierarchical linear model, we found that best performance is achieved by dual-branded hotels that pursue a diversification strategy by entering the market with one brand above and one brand below the mode class of the market. Dual-branded hotels can thus achieve competitive advantage by exploiting superior financial resources and tourism destinations are able to gain monetary advantage from resources employed by dual-branded hotels. This study extends current research on dual-branded hotels by investigating entry strategies and contributes to the resource-based view literature by investigating dual-brands’ resource exploitation and resource spillovers in agglomerated markets.
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    Early and late-stage startup funding in hospitality: Effects on incumbents' market value
    Bianco, Simone; Zach, Florian J.; Liu, Anyu (Elsevier, 2022-07)
    This study investigates the change in investors’ awareness of startups following received funding rounds. We specifically investigate the stock market assessing startups as potential new entrants in an industry that overlooked the disruptor Airbnb to the point where consumers started to embrace the new products, thus costing incumbents market share. This study contributes to the literature on competitive dynamics by investigating resource similarity and market commonality as potential influencer of investors’ awareness. Furthermore, this study offers a new contextualization for studies connecting risk assessment and market value and contributes to the tourism and hospitality literature by investigating investors’ awareness of potential new market entrants. Finally, this study provides managerial insights as it highlights what high-level decision makers can learn from the stock markets’ reactions to startup funding as a means of anticipating possible changes in the competitive environment.
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    Leveraging knowledge via location proximity among hotels and short-term leases
    Bianco, Simone; Singal, Manisha; Zach, Florian J. (Elsevier, 2024-02-28)
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    A Study of Resource-Based Market Entry Strategies in the Hotel Industry
    Bianco, Simone (Virginia Tech, 2023-05-17)
    The hospitality industry has experienced significant changes in its competitive environment over the past 30 years, driven by the growth of alternative accommodations, the widespread use of the internet for searching and booking accommodations, and the adoption of asset-light business models. In this new competitive landscape, hospitality firms struggle to gain a competitive advantage, particularly as they lack rare and inimitable resources, which are considered crucial for achieving competitive advantage according to resource-based view literature. This dissertation explores three sets of strategies that enable hotel firms to attain a competitive edge despite their resources being non-rare and easily imitated by competitors. The first essay examines the potential for hotel firms to benefit from competitors' resources by co-locating with them. Although this strategy has been widely studied in organizational research, recent developments in the competitive market, such as internet adoption and the growth of short-term leases, have not been considered. Evidence suggests that internet adoption decreases the likelihood of low-level hotels entering markets with high-level hotels and negatively moderates the positive effect of branded hotels on independent hotels' performance, as well as nullifying the effect of low-level hotels on high-level hotels' performance. Additionally, short-term leases impact hotels' decisions and performance, as hotels tend to avoid co-locating with short-term leases with similar price points, and short-term leases can appropriate positive agglomeration externalities created by high-level hotels. The second essay investigates whether hotels can outperform competitors by gaining an advantage in resource appropriation through entering the market with a dual-branded hotel. Results indicate that a competitive advantage is achieved when at least one brand in the composition possesses better resources than competitors. Lastly, the third essay concentrates on the potential for hotels to leverage tacit knowledge transmission to increase the difficulty for competitors to imitate them. Findings reveal that the closer a hotel or short-term lease is to the nearest accommodation managed by the same hotel management company or host, the higher the chances of achieving a competitive advantage. Moreover, short-term leases can base their competitive advantage on idiosyncratic knowledge transferred from the platform, and they can compete in size with incumbent hotels if they have a high concentration of ownership in the market.