Strategic nets in tourism destinations: Investigating the learning processes underpinning dynamic management capabilities

Managing a tourism destination is fraught with complexity, with a general consensus that no single entity can manage the comprehensive multiplicity of stakeholders and offerings involved. In this study we take a unique approach by examining tourism destination management through a strategic net lens, where the Destination Management Organisation (DMO) is an intentionally developed strategic net involving a restrictive group of stakeholders, which coordinates and manages the value creating activities of actors in the destination.Our empirical findings are based on the investigation of three strategic net case sites within the Irish tourism industry. We identify net partnering, net visioning and net orchestration capability, which generate and modify operating routines, by integrating, building, and reconfiguring the resources and capabilities of network actors. These dynamic capabilities are developed through the co-evolving learning processes of experience accumulation, knowledge articulation and knowledge codification. Our study contributes to a better understanding of how strategic nets operate, the dynamic capabilities required for the net to function, and the learning processes which underpin them.