ارزیابی انتقادی از تجزیه و تحلیل اهمیت - عملکرد

This study is a methodological evaluation of studies on importance and performance measurement, and importance–performance analysis (IPA) which has gained widespread acceptance in the hospitality and tourism research. A synthesis of IPA literature on conceptual and measurement issues is presented with a view to identifying and mitigating potential validity concerns.

Tourism literature suggests that tourism is a special case of trade in services with particular characteristics that require special treatment in competitiveness analysis. Economic and management literature has identified several conceptual and measurement problems that are the subject of an on-going competitiveness debate, but it also provides Tourism Destination Competitiveness (TDC) studies with sound theoretical foundations based on the integration of comparative and competitive advantage theories. These concepts are implicit in several models that focus on specific aspects of competitiveness and the enumeration of various components that affect it. In spite of their narrow focus and measurement problems, these models contribute to a better understanding of competitiveness and the development of TDC frameworks. This is acknowledged by the three most comprehensive competitiveness models to date (Dwyer and Kim, 2003, Heath, 2003 and Ritchie and Crouch, 2003), which have been primarily designed with large countries in mind. These models provide exhaustive lists of indicators but are still incomplete elaborations. They lack empirical support to validate their formulations and have limited practical utility in evaluating TDC. The literature has strongly suggested further research in TDC models and measurement, especially in small destinations. IPA has been identified as a potentially useful diagnostic tool for assessing TDC. There is a strong body of evidence to show that IPA is a useful and versatile tool but the technique is still surrounded by conceptual, methodological and measurement ambiguity. IPA has been particularly criticised for its arbitrary measurement of importance, and its poor discriminatory and predictive validity. IPA literature highlights the need for IPA research to be extended to incorporate reliability and validity measures.

IPA literature does not identify any particular approach that distinguishes itself in addressing validity concerns but a few empirical studies have provided some guidelines for applying IPA. Various studies suggest that ‘importance’ is a multidimensional concept that has to be quantified by a measure that faithfully reflects its conceptualisation. Some researchers advocate the use of direct ‘importance’ measurement, but caution against potential biases of self-reported measures. The surveying of experts is considered one way of reducing social and awareness biases. Other researchers suggest that implicit importance measures have better predictive validity than direct ratings. However, these indirect measures are also known to be severely limited by the model’s underlying statistical assumptions. To address these statistical concerns, some tourism studies adopt more sophisticated approaches such as conjoint analysis and AHP, but these techniques are deemed unsuitable mostly because they require an intricate data collection process that puts an arduous task on research participants. The literature recommends the use of multiple methods to measure importance within the same study. It emphasises the need for further research to improve the validity of IPA methods and measurement of its core concepts. A refined IPA framework can offer tourism operators a quantitative, theoretically robust method that is relatively easy to apply in empirical studies.