The purpose of this study was to examine the key characteristics of sustainable service innovation in the hospitality industry. We conducted a content analysis based on the interview records for 17 experts (including three academic scholars, three government officers and 11 top-level managers) with an average of 20 years of experience in the hospitality management domain in Taiwan. The analytical results conform to Amabile’s (1988) componential theory of creativity and innovation and show that 11 characteristics are major indicators of sustainable service innovation in the hotel management field. These include the following characteristics: market position, customer satisfaction, service orientation, environmental thinking, employee involvement, incentive mechanism, human resource development, environmental services, cultural resource management, government policy and school education. Accordingly, using the integrated theory of sustainable service innovation and professional opinions from experts, we provide theoretical and practical implications for current and future trends on sustainability and innovation in the hospitality industry.

Sustainable service innovation is a critical attribute in restaurant management that is widely recognized by experts and restaurant owners. In this paper, we investigated ideas on sustainable service innovation in restaurants gathered from interviews with restaurant managers, government experts and scholars in Taiwan. The analytical results show that five dimensions are major indicators of sustainable service innovation in the restaurant management field. These include the following dimensions: sustainable service innovation, food service technology, organizational learning, adoption of innovation and organizational environment. We also found that these five dimensions are important and that they deeply impact restaurant performance. We discuss the characteristics of these five attributes, and talk about the theoretical and empirical implications of research findings.

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to explore the influence of entrepreneurial attitudes, motivation and orientation on the entrepreneurial competitive advantage of innovative entrepreneurs in the tourism and hospitality industry, including those involved with bed and breakfasts, travel agencies and restaurants.Design/methodology/approach: First, the sample for this study was selected through news media reporting on well-known new entrepreneurs, from lists of those entrepreneurs who have won innovation entrepreneurship loan subsidies from the government and from lists of those who have won innovation awards. Second, a pretest was used to confirm the feasibility of the questionnaire. The pretest survey was distributed to a total of 150 tourism and hospitality entrepreneurs. A total of 8 dimensions/facets and 36 items were confirmed. Finally, data collection took place for 9 months. A total of 1,150 questionnaires were distributed, and 606 questionnaires were recovered.Findings: This study proposes a new multi-integration model of moderation-mediation analysis. The innovative business model explores the relationship between entrepreneurial factors and competitive advantage. Based on a survey of 606 staff members and managers of tourism and hospitality firms, entrepreneurs in the tourism and hospitality industry with entrepreneurial attitudes and motives had opportunities to increase their entrepreneurial orientation.Practical implications: In the process of innovative entrepreneurship, whether through organizational learning or other enterprise cooperation, it is necessary to pay more attention and propose different environmental management strategies. In addition, this study also found that marketing uncertainty moderates between entrepreneurial attitudes and entrepreneurial motives. Entrepreneurial motives are more conservative than other motives, and there is increased confidence in investing in innovative entrepreneurship in stable environments.Originality/value: This study indicates that innovative entrepreneurial tourism and hospitality firms have a mediating or moderating effect on the relationship between entrepreneurial attitudes and positional advantage. If used properly, these resources can help the new entrants in the tourism and hospitality sector avoid the limitations of environmental change, firm size or insufficient information and improve their competitive advantage.

Co-competition and business strategy determine tourism organizations’ survival and growth. The current study highlights the following recent findings for the travel agency industry: (a) a co-competition strategy may enhance new service development (NSD) through organizational learning and business strategy; (b) entrepreneurial intention provides the impetus for organizational learning and business strategy improvement; and (c) entrepreneurial intention also strengthens the relationship between business strategy and new service development. This study used 345 surveys from different categories of travel agencies as samples to analyze hypothesis models from Taiwan. The results confirm that travel agencies’ competitive advantages are realized either when a firm maintains good relationships with competitors and adopts a learning orientation or when it deploys the appropriate business competitive strategy and entrepreneurial intention to enable it to offer new services to customers relative to competi­tors.