Alliance Management Practices for Higher Trust, Commitment and Inter-Organizational Relationship Performance: Evidence from Travel Companies in Vietnam

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The paper is vell planned, with logical structure. The abstract is strict, shows the paper's content.

As the literatrure review is strongly developed, it could consists of more new publications. Also methodology is clearly planned and research sources are clear.  Especially table 3 - Path Coefficients - Direct effect on Commitment - and 4 - Indirect effect on Commitment- as connected to the hypotheses are valuabel as they directly presents the research outcome. 

It is also valuable that Authors presented not only the Conclusions but also Limitations of presented research.

The technical mistake is that literature positions No. 47 and No. 50 are the same, so it needs to be improved.

General impression is, as reading the text, that it is the scientific article at the high level.   

Author Response

Dear Reviewer 1

This is Manuscript  ID: sustainability-1270658 with article title: “Alliance Management Practices for Higher Trust, Commitment and Inter-Organizational Relationship Performance: Evidence from Travel Companies in Vietnam”.

The revisions of this paper have been clearly highlighted using the "Track Changes", and this paper has been edited by an ESL educator. The attched file covers detailing any changes as below:

Reviewer 1 comments: The paper is well planned, with logical structure. The abstract is strict, shows the paper's content. Also methodology is clearly planned and research sources are clear. Especially table 3 - Path Coefficients - Direct effect on Commitment - and 4 - Indirect effect on Commitment- as connected to the hypotheses are valuablee as they directly presents the research outcome. It is also valuable that Authors presented not only the Conclusions but also Limitations of presented research. General impression is, as reading the text, that it is the scientific article at the high level. 

ANS: Thank you very much for your fruitful feedback to our work regarding the abstract, methodology, conclusion, and overall manuscript.

R1 Questions

Question 1: As the literature review is strongly developed, it could consist of more new publications.

ANS: Thank you for your suggestion and author modify it. You can see all the "Track Changes" on all the sections.

Furthermore, Moscardo [85] found elements of communication includes communication source credibility, trustworthiness, and ease of comprehension.

Flieger et al. [86], in the oncology context, suggested that inter-organizational coordination is a process that involves using strategy and behaviour characteristics to integrate and align activities, knowledge, and purposes of interdependent members to achieve the mutual goals in the relationships [87].

In Taiwan context, Yeh et al. [88] highlighted three indicators measure of relationship trust such as honesty, trustworthiness, and task fulfilment. Since the relationship trust is known to represent an existing between interpersonal and organizations. If trust was increased and strengthen between people of the organization, it also leads to connect strengthens between members and the organization, and it also speeds up the relationship trust between members. In addition, Mariño-Romero et al.[89] highlighted six items measure of trust such as honest, keep promises, feel a sense of security, offer quality services and guarantee, to be interested in the customers. Since trust refers to require for developing the long term relationships between organizations and customers.

In the online shopping in China context, Chen et al. [90] defined commitment refers to the exchange partners believe in the ongoing relationships with other partners, which is very significant to make sure the maximum effort to maintain these relationships, and they highlighted the elements of commitment also includes calculative commitment and affective commitment.

Question 2: The technical mistake is that literature positions No. 47 and No. 50 are the same, so it needs to be improved.  

ANS: Thank you for your suggestion and author modify it.

[47] Harrigan, K.R. Matching vertical integration strategies to competitive conditions. Strategic Management Journal. 1986, 7, 535-555. https://doi.org/10.1002/smj.4250070605.

Thank you for your consideration of this manuscript.

Respectfully Yours,

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

The aim of this paper is to identify which alliance management factors help to improve the inter-organizational relationship performance between travel companies and their partners in Vietnam. The idea is interesting. However, the paper needs improvement. The authors are invited to revise the manuscript to address the following points:

• The manuscript would benefit from a professional editing and proofreading. English language needs extensive editing.
• The authors need to write purpose of the paper in a way that will justify the unique contribution of this paper. The originality statement of the article should be clearly articulated by supporting more theoretical clarification/evidence as well as rationale why should the reader be interested in.
• At several points in the article the authors refer to COVID-19 as an epidemic. Coronavirus was declared a global pandemic by the World Health Organization. Please correct that.
• In the introduction, please avoid adjectives such as “beautiful”, “magnificence”, “marvelous” etc. that refer more to a tourist guide than to an academic article.
• There are sentences that are really long and hard to follow. For example, “Vietnam tourism industry has made remarkable achievements in terms of revenue, total revenue from tourism is significantly increasing revenue among recent years in 2018 accounted for USD 26.66 billion and in 2019 accounted for USD 32.47 billion [2], compared to the growth rate percentage among recent years from 2014 to 2019 range from 11.4 % to 18.5 % [3]” or “However, in 2020 the Covid-19 epidemic impact on the heaviest their partners, which lead to managers must act quickly to pass these challenges and develop solutions for sustainable development in Vietnam tourism at this time as well as the resources to serve in the tourism industry in the uncertainty environment such as Coronavirus disease has quickly knocked down Vietnam tourism industry”. Please break them down.
• Although alliances are a central concept in the article, this concept is not developed in the literature review. Authors should enrich the literature review with a section with basic theory on strategic alliances (types of alliances, reasons for alliances etc.).
• Authors should move hypotheses from Literature Review to the Methodology Section.
• Some critical information is missing from the methodology section. Authors must indicate when the research took place. What was the situation with tourism in Vietnam at the time of the survey? Were the tourism businesses open or closed? What restrictions were there?
• In paragraph 4.1, a table summarizing the sample characteristics would be useful.
• The findings of the research are compared to those of previous research conducted before the pandemic, therefore in a completely different context. How did the pandemic affect these findings? Also, what differences were found between tourism businesses and businesses from other sectors of the economy with which you compare your results?
• The managerial implications and suggestions presented in the Conclusions mainly concern the development of sustainable tourism in Vietnam. For example, “They should build plans to link eco-tourism with conservation, such as design tours about the sustainable forest, farm, sea, highland, fresh air places, and sustainable products to serve guests (e.g., reusable products, use clean energy)”. How do these suggestions relate to this research?

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

This is Manuscript  ID: sustainability-1270658 with article title: “Alliance Management Practices for Higher Trust, Commitment and Inter-Organizational Relationship Performance: Evidence from Travel Companies in Vietnam”.

The revisions of this paper have been clearly highlighted using the "Track Changes", and this paper has been edited by an ESL educator. The attached file covers detailing any changes as below:

Reviewer’s comments: The aim of this paper is to identify which alliance management factors help to improve the inter-organizational relationship performance between travel companies and their partners in Vietnam. The idea is interesting. However, the paper needs improvement. The authors are invited to revise the manuscript to address the following points:

Question 1: The manuscript would benefit from a professional editing and proofreading. English language needs extensive editing.

ANS: Thank you for your suggestion and author modify the manuscript with the support of an ESL educator. You can see all the "Track Changes" on all the sections.

Question 2: The authors need to write purpose of the paper in a way that will justify the unique contribution of this paper. The originality statement of the article should be clearly articulated by supporting more theoretical clarification/evidence as well as rationale why should the reader be interested in.

ANS: Thank you for your suggestion and author modify the manuscript with all the "Track Changes" on the Introductionpart. You can see below:

As the discussion above shows the necessity of this study, previous studies have been applied IORP in B2B relationships or dyadic relationships, and it also differs on measurement constructs of IORP. Lack of applying IORP in an alliance of interdependent organizations (e.g., accommodation, restaurants, transportation companies, tourist attractions, shopping centers, and other travel agencies) in the Vietnam tourism industry. So this study explored and analyzed the impact of alliance management practice: coordination, communication, flexibility, participation, frequency of interaction, commitment, trust on inter-organizational relationship performance between travel companies and their partners. This study aims to identify alliance management practices for higher trust and commitment toward the relationship of travel companies and inter-organizational relationship performance. Practically, this study provides further insight for the tourism managers as well as government and policies-makers apply practically these concepts to build a sustainability development to recovery tourism industry or design their own strategies. The practitioners can use the findings to implement the similar model in different field to understand inter-organizational relationship pattern better.

Question 3: At several points in the article the authors refer to COVID-19 as an epidemic. Coronavirus was declared a global pandemic by the World Health Organization. Please correct that.

ANS: Thank you for your suggestion and author modified with the term “COVID-19 pandemic” in  page 1, 14,16,17.

Question 4: In the introduction, please avoid adjectives such as “beautiful”, “magnificence”, “marvelous” etc. that refer more to a tourist guide than to an academic article.

ANS: Thank you for your suggestion and author modified with the following terms: delicate, richness, incredible

Question 5: There are sentences that are really long and hard to follow. For example, “Vietnam tourism industry has made remarkable achievements in terms of revenue, total revenue from tourism is significantly increasing revenue among recent years in 2018 accounted for USD 26.66 billion and in 2019 accounted for USD 32.47 billion [2], compared to the growth rate percentage among recent years from 2014 to 2019 range from 11.4 % to 18.5 % [3]” or “However, in 2020 the Covid-19 epidemic impact on the heaviest their partners, which lead to managers must act quickly to pass these challenges and develop solutions for sustainable development in Vietnam tourism at this time as well as the resources to serve in the tourism industry in the uncertainty environment such as Coronavirus disease has quickly knocked down Vietnam tourism industry”. Please break them down.

ANS: Thank you for your suggestion and author modified the manuscript with "Track Changes". We revised as your suggestions to break long sentences that hard to follow. For example,

total revenue is accounted for USD 26.66 billion and USD 32.47 billion from 2018 to 2019.

the rate of international tourists has increased from 5 million visitors to 18 million from 2010 to 2019 [3-4]

Question 6: Although alliances are a central concept in the article, this concept is not developed in the literature review. Authors should enrich the literature review with a section with basic theory on strategic alliances (types of alliances, reasons for alliances etc.).

ANS: Thank you for your suggestion and author modified by adding a section as below:

2.1. Alliance perspectives

Alliances describe as "an arrangement between two or more firms that establishes an exchange relationship but has no joint ownership involved" [79]. According to Oliver [80], the firms with some level of interdependence form alliances for establishing stable relationships and expected capability streams. Alliance may base on different forms such as "joint ventures, franchising, long-term marketing, and licensing contracts, reciprocal trade agreements, R&D partnerships, and affiliation in research consortia” [81]. Additionally, Chen et al. [82] suggested that "a strategic alliance is a formal agreement between two or more business organizations to pursue a set of private and common interests through the sharing of resources in contexts involving uncertainty over outcomes" [82]. Strategic alliances are long-term exchanges, but it appears temporary interface nature, in which members of organizations participate to achieve their respective goals together. The cooperation between the parties is to integrate the resources to achieve the mutual goals, which a company cannot accomplish independently. The alliance members must possess additional resources to get combined power. The success of an inter-organizational relationship performance is related to the alliance management practice that can provide additional resources and economic motivations [51,82]. Alliance management practice may help inter-organizational communication success, such as appropriate and timely sharing of meaning information, coordination among firms. The precise specification of roles and execution of tasks avoid errors, plan and schedule for products, frequent meetings and discussions of all issues, shaping the highest trust in the alliances in ways that foster trust such as placing believes that our partners always do the right things for the relationships to reduce uncertainty resulting from opportunism [13,15,83].

Question 7: Authors should move hypotheses from Literature Review to the Methodology Section.

ANS: Thank you for your suggestion and author modified the hypotheses under the concepts at the part of Literature review. You can see in the “Track changes”.

Question 8: In paragraph 4.1, a table summarizing the sample characteristics would be useful. ANS: Thank you for your suggestion and author added Table 1. Respondents’ demographic information (see Table 1).

Question 9: The findings of the research are compared to those of previous research conducted before the pandemic, therefore in a completely different context. How did the pandemic affect these findings? Also, what differences were found between tourism businesses and businesses from other sectors of the economy with which you compare your results?

ANS: Thank you for your suggestion and author modified them. You can see in the “Track changes”.

In summary, to compare our findings and previous research, in our study, the subjects were travel companies founded alliances with accommodation, restaurants, transportation companies, tourist attractions, shopping centers, and previous research the population target was B2B relationships or dyadic relationships (sellers and customers, retailers and suppliers, hotels and agencies). The findings suggest three different strategies to build inter-organizational relationship performance in this study. First emphasizes building inter-organizational communication, coordination, participation among alliances, which will lead to inter-organizational commitment to increase total sales, share resources, sales growth, cooperation, benefit expectations, and capability to implement the mutual objectives. Connecting with sharing these activities between travel companies and their business partners will strengthen inter-organizational relationship performance development. The second implication is strengthening inter-organizational relationship performance, emphasizing strategies based on inter-organizational communication, participation among travel companies and their business partners. It is important to enhance inter-organizational trust to increase a high degree of harmony, trust our partner's decisions, and competence and abilities to fulfill agreements, fulfill its promises to share resources and operational strategies. Implementing these activities between travel companies and their business partners will build morerobust inter-organizational relationship performance. Additionally, inter-organizational trust and commitment are the simultaneous processes that increase a high level of trust and commitment to control resources scarcity and operational strategies, which can both build a thriving cooperative strategy rely on inter-organizational relationship performance. Finally, the pandemic has wholly crippled the Vietnam tourism industry, so we needed to conduct this research to find what factors lead to alliance success (see the results in Table 4 and 5), then we use these factors to give solutions and strategies to recover and prepare for the post-pandemic tourism industry. So all tourism sectors must stand together to achieve mutual goals to overcome the pandemic.

Question 10:  The managerial implications and suggestions presented in the Conclusions mainly concern the development of sustainable tourism in Vietnam. For example, “They should build plans to link eco-tourism with conservation, such as design tours about the sustainable forest, farm, sea, highland, fresh air places, and sustainable products to serve guests (e.g., reusable products, use clean energy)”. How do these suggestions relate to this research?

ANS: Thank you for your suggestion and author modifiedthe managerial implications and conclusions. You can see in the “Track changes”.

To recover and prepare for the post-pandemic tourism industry, the travel companies and their partners develop alliance strategies and build sustainable tourism. First, they should fulfill their commitment together to protect the society and the environment they are exploiting. Tourism organizations should form strategic relationships to strengthen commitments:reduce prices together, use local products, support other partners to implement sustainable goals, plans to ecotourism with conservation, thereby tourism sectors reduce costs or minimize transaction costs when they interact together, and increase the operative efficiency [7].

In addition, the government and policymakers should have a financial package to support tourism sectors as well as the workforce in the tourism industry such as reducing corporate tax, personal income tax reduction and support salary for workforce, loans with low interest rates for a long time to recover the tourism industry.

 Thank you for your consideration of this manuscript.

Respectfully Yours,

Corresponding author

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

This paper tackled an interesting topic however, the manner it was written organized made reading and understand it very difficult. Even though the main criterion (at least that is what it seemed to me) was to look at this research from COVID 19 perspective, it did not seem that was really explored in the study. 

Suggestions:

1. Provide a stronger rationale for the study.
2. Provide an insight as to how COVID has impacted the industry, both from business as well as tourist perspective.
3. Re-arrange all the information provided more succinctly.
4. Provide hypothesis under the concepts being discussed.
5. Provide theoretical basis for the conceptual model.
6.  Ramp up the discussion sections and create an implication/future research section. Implications should include both academia as well as the industry.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

This is Manuscript  ID: sustainability-1270658 with article title: “Alliance Management Practices for Higher Trust, Commitment and Inter-Organizational Relationship Performance: Evidence from Travel Companies in Vietnam”.

The revisions of this paper have been clearly highlighted using the "Track Changes", and this paper has been edited by an ESL educator. The attached file covers detailing any changes as below:

Reviewer’s comments: This paper tackled an interesting topic however, the manner it was written organized made reading and understand it very difficult. Even though the main criterion (at least that is what it seemed to me) was to look at this research from COVID 19 perspective, it did not seem that was really explored in the study. The reviewer 3 suggested 6 improvements.

Question 1: Provide a stronger rationale for the study.

ANS: Thank you for your suggestion and author modify the manuscript with the robust rationale for the. You can see all the "Track Changes" in page 3.

As the discussion above shows the necessity of this study, previous studies have been applied IORP in B2B relationships or dyadic relationships, and it also differs on measurement constructs of IORP. Lack of applying IORP in an alliance of interdependent organizations (e.g., accommodation, restaurants, transportation companies, tourist attractions, shopping centers, and other travel agencies) in the Vietnam tourism industry. So this study explored and analyzed the impact of alliance management practice: coordination, communication, flexibility, participation, frequency of interaction, commitment, trust on inter-organizational relationship performance between travel companies and their partners. This study aims to identify alliance management practices for higher trust and commitment toward the relationship of travel companies and inter-organizational relationship performance. Practically, this study provides further insight for the tourism managers as well as government and policies-makers apply practically these concepts to build a sustainability development to recovery tourism industry or design their own strategies. The practitioners can use the findings to implement the similar model in different field to understand inter-organizational relationship pattern better.

Question 2: Provide an insight as to how COVID has impacted the industry, both from business as well as tourist perspective.

ANS: Thank you for your suggestion and author modifed the manuscript.

However, in 2020 the Covid-19 pandemic  caused Vietnam's tourism industry to plunge when a series of accommodation establishments, restaurants, tourist attractions, travel companies were lost. These tourism sectors must suspend operations,waiting for the end of the pandemic. About 10% of activities in moderation are held to keep operating to handle debts with partners, customers, and all employees are working online at home or took unpaid leave, and the rest terminated their labor contracts. Besides that, 100% of tour guides are forced to quit their jobs. Many hotels offered employees full breaks, stop doing business, and put them up for sale. Transportation companies and entertainment areas, amusement parks must also suspend operations because there were no visitors [78]. The pandemic has wholly crippled the Vietnam tourism industry. So all tourism sectors must stand together to achieve mutual goals to overcome the pandemic.

Question 3: Re-arrange all the information provided more succinctly.

ANS: Thank you for your suggestion and author modified the entire manuscript as marked in “Track changes”.

Question 4: Provide hypothesis under the concepts being discussed.

ANS: Thank you for your suggestion and author modified by moving the hypotheses under relevant concepts. For example:

Hypothesis 1 (H1a): Communication has effects on commitment toward the relationship of travel companies.

Hypothesis 2 (H2a): Communication has effects on trust toward the relationship of travel companies.

Hypothesis 4 (H4b): Communication has effects on inter-organizational relationship performance.

Hypothesis 5 (H5-1a): The relationship between Communication and Commitment is mediated by Trust.

Hypothesis 5 (H5-2a): The relationship between Communication and inter-organizational relationship performance is mediated by Commitment.

Hypothesis 5 (H5-3a): The relationship between Communication and inter-organizational relationship performance is mediated by Trust.

Hypothesis 5 (H5-4a): The relationship between Communication and inter-organizational relationship performance is mediated by Trust and Commitment.

Question 5: Provide theoretical basis for the conceptual model.  

ANS: Thank you for your suggestion and author modified with the following changes:

The theoretical framework for IORP model  includes coordination, communication, flexibility, frequency of interaction, participation, commitment, and trust.  Theoretically, this study combines two critical theories of the resource dependence theory (RDT) and the transaction cost theory (TCT) for deeper insights and better explanations of IORP to offer descriptive surroundings, recognizing the improvement, and build up an integrated conceptual framework. TCT view IORP as alliance and share the ideas that alliance were founded on resources scarcity and risk environment [7]. In addition, Alliances seek to control the important elements of their business field to achieve mutual goals. Regard to TCT, the organizations enter in IORs to minimize transaction costs when they interact together, and increase the operative efficiency [7], the organizations founded alliance to achieve efficient, professional, and sharing risk in uncertainty environment. According to RDT, the organizations engage in IORs because of needing external resources and control the critical resources that are significant to the organizations [6].

Question 6: Ramp up the discussion sections and create an implication/future research section. Implications should include both academia as well as the industry.

ANS: Thank you for your suggestion and author modified with the following arguments:

This study draws some implications and suggestions for managers of tourism sectors, policymakers, and government. Inprevious years before Covid 19 pandemic breaks out, the booming tourism industry in Vietnam depends on inter-organizational relationship performance. The higher IORP increase the ability to succeed. However, travel companies and their business partners should develop alliance strategies and build sustainable tourism based on enhancing trust, commitment, coordination, and frequent interaction directly affecting IORP. Also, focus on building the participation, communication that build trust-commitment, which increases to strengthen IORP develop indirectly.

In addition, the government and policymakers should have a financial package to support tourism sectors as well as the workforce in the tourism industry such as reducing corporate tax, personal income tax reduction and support salary for workforce, loans with low interest rates for a long time to recover the tourism industry.

Hence future research should use qualitative and quantitative methods and apply this model in economic field, social field, health care and beauty salon field, and environmental context. Finally, this study focused only on travel companies and travel agencies, so the study did not get many perspectives from all parties. Therefore, future studies had better have surveys of all tourism sectors in Vietnam to address general issues.

Thank you for your consideration of this manuscript.

Respectfully Yours,

Corresponding author

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

In this revised version of the article, most of the reviewers’ comments have been addressed. The text has been improved in quality. In Table 1, make sure the percentages add up to 100, neither 99.9 nor 100.1. 

Author Response

Responses to reviewers’ comments

Manuscript ID:         1270658

Title: Alliance Management Practices for Higher Trust, Commitment and Inter-Organizational Relationship Performance: Evidence from Travel Companies in Vietnam

Dear Editor,

We thank you for the opportunity to have the revision of our paper. We have endeavored to respond to all reviewer comments as detailed below, and we remain committed to undertake further revisions if necessary.

We would like to address the comments from Reviewer 2.

REVIEWER 2

• In this revised version of the article, most of the reviewers’ comments have been addressed. The text has been improved in quality. In Table 1, make sure the percentages add up to 100, neither 99.9 nor 100.1. 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Thank you for making the changes needed. I would highly recommend that the paper be edited prior to submission as it has numerous grammatical errors. 

Author Response

Responses to reviewers’ comments

Manuscript ID:         1270658

Title: Alliance Management Practices for Higher Trust, Commitment and Inter-Organizational Relationship Performance: Evidence from Travel Companies in Vietnam

Dear Editor,

We thank you for the opportunity to have the revision of our paper. We have endeavored to respond to all reviewer comments as detailed below, and we remain committed to undertake further revisions if necessary.

We would like to address the comments from Reviewer 3.

REVIEWER 3

• Thank you for making the changes needed. I would highly recommend that the paper be edited prior to submission as it has numerous grammatical errors. 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf