According to the industry expert, the MICE industry is a very unique industry. It belongs to the service industry, so the services in the MICE industry are intangible, inseparable, perishable, and variable as well, but the maintenance of customer relationships in the industry is much more difficult than that in the service industry.
Many international conventions and several globalised exhibitions rotate around member countries or potential destinations. As a result, one PCO or PEO that assists in organising a huge conference or exhibition might have to wait for five or ten years until the next time the same event is held in Taiwan. The demands for such services are not repetitive unlike the needs for other service industries or for commodities.
Therefore, the opportunities for players in the MICE industry to serve the same group of customers are slim. Since the services provided in the MICE industry have the shared characteristics of those in the service industry, it is imperative for the MICE industry players to ensure that no major mistakes leading to the failure of any event should be made.
In order to be successful in the MICE industry, the industry expert suggested that the quality of services and firm reputation be the two key success factors that industry players should meet. He added that human resources of good quality were imperative as well. The results of this research correspond to the insights provided by the
industry expert. The two high-performers chosen to be studied have operated in the MICE industry for more than a decade, which enabled them to have attained broad knowledge of how to operate and extensive experience in satisfying customer
demands with top-notch services in the industry. The organisational culture of the two firms urges their employees and suppliers to devote themselves to the pursuit of services of the best quality, ensuring each service meets customers’ needs or exceeds the expectations of the customers, which has helped the firms to build a positive reputation in the industry. Moreover, the good and beneficial exchanges with employees, suppliers, and customers that both firms have striven to maintain have given the firms more flexibility and efficiency in carrying out their services and more resources and synergy derived from collaboration with employees and suppliers, and
sometimes even with customers, who will refer the two firms to their friends or family members.
The findings of this research generally support the theory of resource-based view of the firm in that capabilities make the most contributions to the superior
performance of the firm than intangibles and tangibles (Clulow, 2003, 2007;
Galbreath, 2005). In terms of the resources of the high-performing cases in this research, the results show that the two cases in this research have acquired key resources that are similar in nature. High quality human resources, networks, and reputation are identified as significant intangible resources for the firms. In terms of capabilities, employee know-how, market information/knowledge, and management of all kinds are crucial to the success Firm A and Firm B. Organisational culture and perception of quality and professionalism are the shared attitudinal capabilities that determine the attitude and ‘mindset’ of the firms towards choice making and many other aspects in the organisations.
In accordance with the four characteristics of key resources proposed by Barney (1991), the key resources possessed by Firm A and Firm B are indeed valuable (such as employee know-how), rare (e.g. networks), inimitable (e.g. reputation and
organisational culture), and nonsubstitutable (e.g. quality services), and this explains why the firms have been able to sustain their competitive advantages and superior performance.
The key resources that the high-performers have had should be processed through routine and activities unique to the companies. These routines and activities involve employees, suppliers, and customers. The research results indicate that trust,
communication, and reciprocity are the three elements underpinning the exchanges of the firms with their stakeholders. Commitment or responsibility is also an important factor raised by interview participants from time to time in the interviews. The relationships the firms have with their employees, suppliers, and customers in this research fall into four types of social exchange based on the study of Lawler (2001): 1) productive exchange; 2) negotiated exchange; 3) reciprocal exchange; and 4)
generalised exchange. Because of the special nature of the relationships among
customers, intermediaries (PCO and translation vendor in this research), and suppliers (interpreters and translators) in the MICE industry and T&I industry, this study has extended Lawler’s (2001) generalised exchange by incorporating negotiated and reciprocal exchanges.
Both firms studied in this research demonstrate that the organisational culture centering on the perception of quality leads them to pursue better quality human resources. In order to bring out the best in employees, they have set forth
comprehensive HRM policies, operations management processes, project
management programmes, and quality control management, which later on become rooted and embedded in the companies. The emphasis on the perception of quality also extends to their selection of suppliers, and they treat suppliers as an extension of their talent pool, so they do not have to be worried that the area of capabilities will shrink by subcontracting company activities (Hall, 1993). To convert key resources into core competence, and hence sustained competitive advantages, the firms strive to develop beneficial social exchanges with employees and suppliers, who return the benevolence of the firms with more efforts, as well as with customers, who will revisit for more services and refer the studied firms to new customers, and ultimately, the two firms outperform other competitors.