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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. / Doctor of Philosophy / The lodging industry has undergone numerous changes in the past 30 years, with the widespread adoption of the internet, the growth of the short-term lease market, and the implementation of asset-light strategies significantly impacting how hotels compete locally. This dissertation examines various market-entry strategies that can enable hotel firms to achieve a competitive advantage in local markets. The first essay explores the advantages of co-locating with competitors. Results indicate that previously identified benefits, such as reduced search costs for customers leading to higher performance for clustered competitors, have been diminished or nullified by the extensive use of the internet for searching and booking hotels. Independent hotels may still gain agglomeration advantages by co-locating with branded hotels, but the benefits are substantially reduced due to internet usage. Furthermore, the presence of different levels of short-term leases in the market affects hotels' entry patterns, which tend to diverge from short-term leases. Additionally, low-level short-term leases tend to capture agglomeration benefits created by high-level hotels, resulting in decreased performance for low-level hotels. The second essay investigates the optimal strategy for entering the market with a dual-branded hotel. Results show that, overall, adopting a vertically diversified strategy (i.e., where one of the two brands in the composition is of a higher class compared to the other) is preferable, with the higher class above the market's average class and the lower class below it. Conversely, the least effective strategy is to adopt a vertically diversified approach where both brands are below the market's average class. The third essay examines knowledge sharing among hotels and short-term leases managed by the same hotel management company or short-term lease host. Findings suggest that accommodations should be located near other properties managed by the same entity to facilitate operating knowledge transmission through face-to-face interactions, coordination among units, and the easy transfer of key personnel. Additionally, the study found that hotels should carefully consider entering a market with a high concentration of short-term lease ownership, as a higher concentration of short-term leases owned by the same host leads to lower hotels' RevPAR in the market.

La transmission intergénérationnelle des connaissances au sein de la banque tunisienne au moyen de la formation sur le tas fait traditionnellement partie de la culture de branche inhérente au secteur bancaire. Ce mode de formation archaïque n’a pas disparu, et la banque tunisienne a même intégré de nouveaux modes plus modernes. La comparaison avec la situation des banques allemandes, pionnières dans le domaine de la formation professionnelle et surtout de la formation duale permet d’une part de mettre en relief l’avènement d’une entrouverture au recrutement externe de jeunes diplômés issus de l’université. Mais, également et d’autre part de montrer que l’adoption par les banques tunisiennes de ce mode de formation censé créer davantage de synergies entre les salariés contribue au contraire à dégrader davantage le climat social aussi bien entre qu’avec la hiérarchie. En effet, dans un contexte de renouvellement des générations, couplé avec une ouverture à la concurrence internationale, le management introduit de nouvelles pratiques gestionnaires, et veut modifier rapidement la culture interne tout en gardant cette transmission à des fins de codification / The intergeneration transfer of technical and professional knowledge within the Tunisian banking system thanks to the training on the job belongs to the traditional culture of the financial sector. This kind of archaic training, it hasn’t disappeared. The Tunisian banks have as well already integrated new and modern ways of training. The international comparison with German banks allows to underline the external recruiting of young graduated people from universities. Moreover, and despite the fact that the Tunisian banking system is following the German training example which is due to lead to more synergies between employees and hierarchy, we notice that the internal culture is deteriorating more and more because of the introduction of managing practises which only take into account the maximisation of the banks profit abilities. In a context of renew generation and opening to the international competition, the management introduce new management practices and want to change the internal culture with keeping this technical and professional knowledge to permitting a codification.