180 Organizacija, V olume 54 Issue 3, August 2021 Research Papers 1 Received: 5th December 2020; revised: 16th May 2021; accepted: 10th June 2021 Hotel Branding Exposed: a Content Analysis of Related Organisational Values Kristijan BREZNIK 1,2 , Kris LAW 3 , Mitja GORENAK 4 1 International School of Social and Business Studies, Celje, Slovenia, kristijan.breznik@mfdps.si 2 College of Nursing, Celje, Slovenia 3 Deakin University, Faculty of Sci Eng & Built Env, School of Engineering, Geelong 3220 VIC, Australia, kris.law@deakin.edu.au 4 University of Maribor, Faculty of Tourism, Brežice, Slovenia, mitja.gorenak@um.si (Corresponding author) Background/Purpose: This paper explores how organisational values can help to understand the interlinks of hotel brands and their hotel rating. The study assumes that the importance of organisational values in the service sector represents one of the key components of both growth and development of an organisation. Methods: Conceptual content analysis was used on the dataset of organisational values found on websites of the top 100 European hotel brands. Advanced network analytic procedures were applied to identify clustered dimen- sions of organisational values among various hotel brands. Results: Results identified shared organisational values among hotel brands clustered into four predominant dimen- sions: entrepreneurial, stakeholders, moral, and tradition. The study confirmed wide content variability of organisa- tional values within the hotel brand industry. Conclusion: The cluster analysis identified clusters of the most important words from values statements, conclud- ing that hotel brands highly value “entrepreneurial” and “ethical” clusters. The island analysis approach on hotel brands’ level also reveals that organisational values in this sector are determined by many factors, including the scale and market positioning. Our study provides theoretical and practical implications to hotel brand strategists in order to better understand their current and desired sector position. Keywords: Organisational values, Hotel industry, Branding, Content analysis, Network analysis DOI: 10.2478/orga-2021-0012 1 Introduction In order to achieve its goals, the operations of every organisation lean on various factors, such as business mod- els and culture. It is essential to understand what shaped these organisations into what they are today and what they value. Organisational values drive organisations’ way of thinking and (re)acting. These values arise from the founders’ values (Collins, Collins, & Porras, 2005). They are also understood as forces influencing organisations in various dimensions such as branding, market orientation, financial flows, social characteristics, etc. Organisational values are vital to the growth and development of an or- ganisation (Pedersen, Gwozdz, & Hvass, 2018), as they influence employee behaviour (Wilkins, Butt, & Annabi, 2018). Employees represent one of the fundamental pillars of any organisation (Ogunmokun, Eluwole, Avci, Lasisi, & Ikhide, 2020). In the service sector, employees are di- rectly corresponding to the needs of customers. Therefore, employees significantly contribute to business success (Pavlakovič & Jereb, 2020). Organisations need to empha- sise processes based on moral values of their employees (Blažič Peček & Ovsenik, 2018). That is why companies are looking for passionate people who are willing to have 181 Organizacija, V olume 54 Issue 3, August 2021 Research Papers fun and are ready to run the so-called “extra mile” to reach organisational goals (D’Amato & Tosca, 2019). That is es- pecially true in the service industry where employees have to capture customers’ needs and improve services innova- tively (Helmy, Adawiyah, & Setyawati, 2020). In the service industry, hospitality is well known for its steady growth in the recent decades and its rapid re- sponses to the changes in the market (Prevolšek, Rozman, Pažek, Maksimović, & Potočnik Topler, 2017; Rangus & Brumen, 2016). Within the highly competitive hospitality industry, hotels are always striving to build profitable and reputed brands, and organisational values are therefore in- dispensable. A brand signals an array of product or service charac- teristics (Oh, Lee, & Lee, 2020). Travellers may decide by relying on what the brand projects about the hotel’s actual or expected performance standards of a certain hotel. The more intensely and positively the brand signals its prom- ising performance, the better the hotel’s chance to become the consumer’s final choice (Oh et al., 2020). However, researchers have paid little attention to the influence of hu- man value orientation on brand consciousness and behav- ioural intentions so far (Kautish, Khare, & Sharma, 2020). The importance of organisational values in the ser- vice sector is considered to be significant (Dobni, Ritch- ie & Zerbe, 2000), responding rapidly to any changes in the economy of the tourism sector. The tourism sector is always striving to be as agile as possible in providing ser- vices based on consumer demand, which is changing more rapidly than in other sectors. Values are strongly related to brand acceptance, which is essential for hotel brands. Given those contextual variables such as chain affiliation, hotel star rating, and size, they are essential for defining hotels’ organisational values. Despite extensive research that was previously done on organisational values (Pfifer, Goodstein, & Nolan, 1985; Simerly, 1987; Kenny, 1994; Cha & Edmondson, 2006, …) as well as research on branding (Gehani, 2001; Neumeier, 2005; Kapferer, 2008; Grace, Ross, & King, 2020, …) we have determined that there is no sufficient work identifying the critical determi- nants of organisational values among hotels. We found this to be a major gap that was interesting to research. This pa- per explores the core determinants of organisational values of hotel brands by using content analysis and network an- alytic methods among the top 100 European hotel brands. 2 Theoretical background 2.1 Values Individual values are regarded as beliefs upon which individuals perform their tasks (Allport, 1961), following their personal preferences. Relationships with an indi- vidual positively influence these values (England, 1967) which are relatively permanent and can be seen as guide- lines of individual behaviour (Rokeach, 1973). The na- ture of human values (Rokeach, 1973) classifies values in two major groups. The first group presents instrumental values, which are values linked to the way people work. The second group are terminal values related to the de- sired end state in contrast to the operational performance seen in instrumental values. Within each of the two basic types of values (instrumental and terminal), we find two sub-categories. The first sub-category of terminal values is personal terminal values, the second sub-category is social terminal values. This division is linked to the importance of value whether it is vital to the individual (salvation, peace) or the society (world peace, fraternity). In instru- mental values, we divide these into moral values (sense of guilt), and competence-based values (logical reasoning). Regarding the individual values, Schwartz (1992) defined four distinctive groups. The model created by (Schwartz, 1992) was circular; this helped him to arrange and group the values compatible with each other and de- velop a contra-pole of values that conflict. This proposed model especially highlighted four distinctive groups, where we can see “Openness to change” on the one hand and “Conservation” as well as “Self-transcendence” and “Self-enhancement” as the opposing forces on the other. Though values are relatively permanent, this does not apply to changes amongst individuals. These changes can occur based on changes in the economic, social or tech- nological sphere of life. (Freeman III, Herriges, Kling, Herriges, & Kling, 2014). Rokeach (1973) claims that all individuals have the same values and also states that signs of absolute value to a person change through time - based on the experiences and situation they live in or on how (Vecchione et al., 2019) they see it in different life stag- es. Malbašić, Rey, and Potočan (2015) applied Schwartz’s theory (Schwartz, 1992) on evaluating values for individ- uals, groups, and organisations. Personal values are the basis upon which concepts of organisational values are presented, where individuals are the founding blocks of any organisation. Without personal values at the individual level, there will be no development of organisational val- ues (Gorenak, 2019). 2.2 Organisational values A wide range of organisational values studies has reached a consensus about the definition of organisation- al values (Malbašić, Marimon, & Mas-Machuca, 2016). Organisational values arise from organisational culture (Pfeiffer, Goodstein, & Nolan, 1985), while organisational culture defines expectations regarding behaviour, modes of conduct, decision-making methods, and communica- tion (Simerly, 1987). Individual values are the basis for developing organisational values essential to every or- 182 Organizacija, V olume 54 Issue 3, August 2021 Research Papers ganisation, just as they are for every individual (Kenny, 1994). People get together, bringing their values to the or- ganisation. However, according to (Pfeiffer et al., 1985), organisational values at the beginning of the existence of any organisation are very closely related to the personal values of the founding members in the very same organ- isation. At this stage, organisational values evolve organ- ically. The organisation grows; it would further define its organisational values. The initial organic growth of organ- isational values would be seen as hazardous, especially re- garding organisational values. This perception can hinder the growth and development of an organisation (Cha & Edmondson, 2006). Organisational values are essential for initial organic growth and are also crucial for long-term organisational performance (Collins et al., 2005). The in- ternalisation of organisational values through employees promotes organisational performance more significantly (Collins et al., 2005). It can be achieved by focusing on the seamless fit between an individual and an organisation. Posner, Kouzes, and Schmidt (1985) have empirically proven that the higher the level of fit between organisa- tional and personal values, the more positive approach to- wards work is shown by individuals and this leads to better performance. These five theories determine the fit between personal and organisational values: the personality-envi- ronment fit theory (Lewin, 1951), personality-job fit the- ory (Holland, 1985), personality-organisation fit theory (Judge & Cable, 1997), personality-vocational fit theory (Hoerr, 1989) and personality-group fit theory (Guzzo & Salas, 1996). These theories discuss various approaches to matching personal values and organisational setting, and organisational values. The relationship between organisations’ value state- ments and their reflection in the organisation has mostly been seen in organisational culture (Hofstede, 1998), in- cluding the values. However, not all types of value state- ments reflect elements of culture (Allison, 2019). Bourne, Jenkins, and Parry (2019) had approached this issue differ- ently. They addressed the need to further understand the important topic of values by developing an inventory and conceptual map of espoused values drawn from organisa- tional websites. Researchers have worked around deter- mining the organisational values of various organisations for a long time. At the same time, most research was done by analysing the individual organisation’s organisational values in many cases, with relation to various manageri- al topics. Lyons, Duxbury & Higgins (2006) conducted a study of over 500 participants from larger companies (500 employees or more), in which 22 values were identified. These values were grouped into five distinctive clusters: extrinsic work values, intrinsic work values, altruistic work values, extrinsic aspects of work and social environ- ment of work. 2.3 Branding and organisational values in the hotel industry Branding is a renowned concept and a useful tool for companies to identify and differentiate products or services in consumers’ minds (Liu, Wong, Tseng, Chang, & Phau, 2017). A brand can therefore be described as a feeling that a group of people shares about a product, service or com- pany (Neumeier, 2005). Well established in the literature is that well-built sustainable and robust consumer/brand rela- tionships are the cornerstones to recent marketing success. Understanding how consumers respond to brands has dom- inated the marketing literature for decades (Grace, Ross, & King, 2020). A company often uses branding strategy to communicate its identity and value to consumers and other stakeholders (Gehani, 2001). A strong brand is built around its own culture, which helps to distinguish simi- lar brands within the same industry and brings a group of like-minded consumers together; one of its most compet- itive parts (Kapferer, 2008). Contextual variables such as chain affiliation, hotel star rating, and size are essential for defining hotels’ organisational values (Dief & Font, 2012). In the hotel industry, star rating is closely related to brand image (Jiang, Gretzel & Law, 2014). How a brand is ac- cepted is strongly related to values as well; this is essential for hotel brands (Kumar & Sharma, 2014). By developing value in its brand, a hotel firm can sell its brand name to investors and developers, and reach customers, thus creat- ing demand to sustain growth (Barreda, Bilgihan, Nusair, & Okumus, 2016). Frontline employees are the ambassadors and practi- tioners of an organisation; their attitudes and behaviour influence the firm’s image (Park & Levy, 2014). By estab- lishing a link between branding, star-rating, and hotel val- ues, we can see that organisations that value tradition are less likely to respond to changes quickly. They are bound to respect the practice they have (Tajeddini and Trueman, 2012). The tourism sector trends influence the values tour- ists perceive as valuable (Dwyer, Edwards, Mistilis, Ro- man, & Scott, 2009), and motivating (Li & Cai, 2011). Or- ganisations must continuously strive to attract candidates that demonstrate those characteristics (Tepeci & Bartlett, 2002). While attracting employees who agree on the val- ues of the organisation, organisations also need to under- stand the values in relation to their customers. This study aims to explore the linkage between organ- isational values and hotel brands by answering the follow- ing research questions: RQ 1: What are the core determinants of the organisa- tional values of hotel brands? RQ 2: How are the hotel brands bonding by organisa- tional values? 183 Organizacija, V olume 54 Issue 3, August 2021 Research Papers 3 Methods 3.1 Instrument The study was carried out on a list of the top 100 European hotel brands provided by Doggrell (2018). Or- ganisational values of the targeted hotel brands were re- trieved manually as text files from their websites in April 2019. From the web pages of the top 100 hotel brands, we obtained organisational values of 84 hotel brands as 16 organisational values were missing. In the first phase, conceptual content analysis was used to identify the most frequent words in organisational values of all hotel brands in the dataset. In the subsequent steps, network analytic procedures were applied. 3.2 Content analysis The organisational values retrieved were used as the base for applying conceptual content analysis in order to identify the most frequent words. However, in-text words with no specific meaning, i.e., stop words, or redundant words, often occur. To start with the conceptual content analytic procedure, we manually deleted redundant words (such as “the”, “and”, “in” and others) first. Also, syno- nyms (different words with the same meaning) were taken into account. All synonyms of every word were manual- ly replaced with the most appropriate word. Frequencies of words in organisational values of all 84 hotel brands were calculated by using content analytic procedures and statistical software. The R-Software (2019) and its library tm (Feinerer, Hornik, Software, & Ghostscript, 2018) were used. Then, the keywords were identified as the most fre- quently used words in the organisational values of hotel brands. 3.3 Network analytic procedures Network analysis was conducted using the Pajek pro- gram (Mrvar & Batagelj, 2019) and VOSViewer graphical tool (van Eck & Waltman, 2019), to construct and visualise bibliometric networks. Algorithms for network construc- tion were written in R-Software (2019). The social network, in general, is defined in two parts: the first part consists of actors represented by nodes in the network representation, and the second part is the re- lation(s) between actors. In the network representation, relations are shown by links between actors (either di- rected or undirected). In this study, actors are determined by keywords identified in the conceptual content analytic part. Their relations are defined by the co-occurrence of two keywords in organisational value of the same organi- sation (i.e. the same hotel brand). Analysis of the network of keywords proceeded with clustering and identification of denser parts of the network. The actors in the keywords network were clustered using the VOS clustering method (Waltman, van Eck, & Noyons, 2010). One of the advantages of the VOS clus- tering quality function over the modularity function is the elegant mathematical relationship between the VOS clus- tering quality function and the VOS mapping quality func- tion. The resulting network is displayed using the VOS mapping quality function. One of the most advanced methods for detecting dens- er parts within a network is the island approach. Specif- ically, islands are a very general and efficient approach to determine significant subnetworks of a given network (Batagelj, Doreian, Ferligoj, & Kejžar, 2014). The island actors are more closely related to each other than to actors outside the island. 4 Results Firstly, conceptual content analysis was carried out on organisational values to identify the most important words, i.e. words with the highest frequency. After having deleted redundant words and accounting for synonyms, the set has 161 words left. The highest number of words in one organ- isational value of a hotel brand is 21. The highest number of words belongs to the Park Hyatt hotel brand, followed by Westin Hotels & Resorts (19 words) and the NH Col- lection Hotels (17 words). The network of words has then been constructed with the relation of co-occurrence in the same hotel brand val- ue. Therefore, words are shown ‘linked’ in the network if they occur together in at least one hotel brand organisa- tional value. The obtained network is undirected (if one value is related to the second value, the opposite is also true) and weighted (a pair of values can occur together in several different hotel brand values). The degree distribu- tion of words in the network is displayed on a log-log scale in Figure 1. The degree distribution in Figure 1 indicates a scale- free network which is often the case in real-world networks (Choromański, Matuszak, & Miȩkisz, 2013). Degrees range from 1 to 207, while the peak frequency appears at degree 10. While not many fall on the lower end, the high- est degree is achieved by the word “excellence”, namely in the set of hotel brands values this word co-occurs with other words 207-times. As suggested in similar studies (Breznik & Law, 2019; Law & Breznik, 2018; Breznik 2016, van Eck & Waltman, 2011), the number of words was further reduced to apply advanced network analytic procedures. For this reason, we set the threshold of the unique frequency of a word at 5. 184 Organizacija, V olume 54 Issue 3, August 2021 Research Papers Table 1 shows the list of words that appear in at least five different organisational values (we will use the term key- words), together with the degrees for top organisational values. From Table 1, keywords like “excellence” and “integ- rity”, and also “customer” and “service”, are on the top of the list. The next step was to form the clusters of keywords with regards to network properties. VOS clustering meth- od was used, and results are displayed in Figure 2. The method of clustering, in general, is a standard procedure Figure 1: Degree distribution of words in the network of co-occurrence to determine groups of statistical entities (clusters) that belong together. Moreover, clusters can be understood as a mathematical partition of a set of 36 keywords, group- ing of elements into non-empty subsets. The size of each keyword presented in Figure 2 is proportional to the de- gree of the keyword. For instance, the keyword excellence (coloured red – top left cluster) is the largest. Four clusters can be seen in Figure 2. In the red one (top left cluster), the most common of all keywords is ex- cellence, together with keywords such as customer, prof- itability, service, business and experience. This group of values represents entrepreneurship. This cluster is there- fore named the “entrepreneurial” cluster. In the yellow (top-right) cluster, keywords such as community, commitment, responsibility, environment and cooperation represent the stakeholders’ care. This group of values represents the stakeholders. This cluster is named the “stakeholders” cluster. In the green one (bottom right cluster), integrity, hon- esty, accountability, and respect represent morality key- words. This group of values represents morality. Thus, this cluster is named the “moral” cluster. The last one, the bottom left cluster (coloured blue) with keywords hospitality, unique, culture and history, represents the industry’s tradition. This group of values represents tradition. Thus, this cluster is named the “tra- dition” cluster. Clustering procedures can also be reversed. We can construct a network of brands with relation defined as keyword(s) occurring in organisational values of both brands. Two brands are linked if they share at least one common keyword in their organisational values. The net- work of brands is classified as an undirected and weighted network. Weights on the links, displayed by the size and colour, stand for the number of keywords shared in values between linked brands. Higher weights on the links are in- dicated by darker colour and thicker links. We have determined five distinctive islands of hotel brands regarding the keywords they share (Figure 3). The size of the island’s circle represents the number of hotel rooms that a particular hotel brand has within Europe. The colour, on the other hand, represents the type of a hotel that each brand corresponds to. The black colour represents luxurious hotels. By contrast, the white colour represents 185 Organizacija, V olume 54 Issue 3, August 2021 Research Papers Word Unique frequency % Frequency Degree W-degree excellence 23 27,38 29 101 206 integrity 19 22,62 20 73 148 customer 17 20,24 19 69 123 service 16 19,05 19 80 146 hospitality 15 17,86 15 47 79 respect 13 15,48 13 68 109 responsibility 13 15,48 13 49 82 unique 12 14,29 15 78 120 profitability 12 14,29 15 56 81 culture 12 14,29 14 57 80 business 12 14,29 13 44 65 caring 11 13,10 12 46 76 innovation 11 13,10 11 45 75 future 10 11,90 13 42 53 creativity 10 11,90 10 53 89 wellness 9 10,71 14 57 87 global 9 10,71 12 44 81 comfort 9 10,71 11 41 61 quality 9 10,71 9 67 112 embrace 9 10,71 9 32 48 team 8 9,52 12 41 61 committed 8 9,52 10 60 83 environment 8 9,52 10 20 32 inclusive 8 9,52 9 48 62 personality 8 9,52 8 57 76 historical 7 8,33 8 51 71 intellectual 7 8,33 8 29 47 community 7 8,33 7 52 62 experiences 7 8,33 7 50 65 accountability 6 7,14 9 21 33 design 6 7,14 8 33 51 honesty 6 7,14 6 34 44 atmosphere 5 5,95 7 43 52 cooperation 5 5,95 6 24 25 local 5 5,95 5 35 42 happiness 5 5,95 5 21 26 Table 1: Distribution of words frequencies and degree distribution Unique frequency – the number of occurrences of an observed word in organisational values where occurrences in the same organisational value are counted only once % - the percentage of all possible occurrences Frequency – the number of occurrences of an observed word in organisational values all counted Degree – the number of adjacent words in the network of words W-degree – weighted degree is the sum of weights on links with adjacent words 186 Organizacija, V olume 54 Issue 3, August 2021 Research Papers Figure 2: Network of keywords in organisational values of hotel chains clustered with VOS clustering method the economy type of hotels. Colour shades are represent- ing different kinds of hotels. The first island involves four hotel brands, AC Hotels by Marriot, JW Marriot, Marriot hotels and Renaissance Hotels. All of these hotels are quality high-end hotels of ei- ther upscale, upper-upscale or luxurious level. Interesting- ly, these hotels all belong to Marriot International, which runs several hotel brands. This group of hotel brand values include excellence, embracing change, and putting people first as the top values. This island of hotel brands can be linked directly to the top left cluster of keywords obtained from the clustering method, of which the lead value is also excellence. The second island involves four hotel brands, Best Western, Campanile, Dorint and Premier Inn. They are all mid-range hotels belonging to economy, midscale and up- scale level. Interestingly, these four hotel brands are owned by four different companies. This group’s keywords are hospitality, authenticity, and consumer orientation, which can be directly linked to the bottom left cluster (tradition) of keywords according to the clustering method. The lead value is also hospitality. The third island consists of three hotel brands, Days Inn, Ramada Worldwide, Tryp by Wyndham. They are all mid-range hotels belonging to economy, midscale and upper-midscale level. Interestingly, they all belong to 187 Organizacija, V olume 54 Issue 3, August 2021 Research Papers Figure 3: Islands of size between 3 and 10 in the network of hotel brands the same organisation, the Wyndham Hotel Group. This group’s keywords include integrity, accountability, inclu- siveness, caring and fun, associated with the bottom right cluster (moral), with integrity as the lead keyword. There are three hotel brands within the fourth island, Grand Hyatt, Hyatt Regency, Wyndham Hotels & Resorts. These are all the high-end hotels, belonging to upper-up- scale or luxurious level, run by two different organisations, Hyatt Hotels Corporation and Wyndham Hotel Group, with headquarters in the United States of America. This group of hotel brands has shared keywords, such as integ- rity, humility, creativity and innovation, directly linked to the bottom right cluster (moral) with integrity as the top keyword. The fifth and the last island comprises three hotel brands, Danubius, Park Hyatt and Westin Hotels & Re- sorts. They are all high-end hotels of the upper midscale, upper-upscale or luxurious level. Interestingly, this is the second island where none of the hotel brands shares key- words with other hotel brands. In other words, three differ- ent companies run three hotel brands. This group of hotel brands shows the core keywords such as cooperation and responsibility to partners and community. They are direct- ly linked to the top right cluster (stakeholder) of keywords obtained from the clustering method, of which cooperation is the lead keyword. 5 Discussion 5.1 Keyword clusters From this study, clusters of keywords are obtained in order to show the values shared among hotel brands, demonstrating the same values with four apparent dimen- sions. The results imply that these keyword clusters, entre- preneurial and ethical, are highly valued by hotel brands, this being in line with findings from Dobni, Ritchie & Zerbe (2000). These values are embedded in many hotel brands, representing the “excellence” in the competitive market, regardless of the market positions, and this ex- cellence is also seen in findings from D’Amato & Tosca (2019). Entrepreneurial cluster, with “excellence” as the principal keyword, represents the driving forces of com- petitiveness. With “integrity” as the primary value, the “moral” cluster demonstrates the importance of corporate responsibility and ethics as the baselines. The smaller clus- ters, “stakeholder” and “tradition”, represent the specifics of hotel brands. Interlinks between clusters are also noted. This finding explains that every hotel brand can brace its own and unique list of keywords from the four clusters. Based on these findings, we can answer the first research question: What are the core determinants of organisational values of hotel brands? The four clusters identified in the 188 Organizacija, V olume 54 Issue 3, August 2021 Research Papers study represent the core determinants of the organisational values of hotel brands. 5.2 Island analysis of hotel brands From the results obtained by the island analysis (Fig- ure 3), it is possible to conclude that high-end hotel brands are striving for entrepreneurial success while emphasising a high level of integrity (moral) and responsibility towards their “stakeholders”. The high-end chain hotel brand (owned by the same group) inclines toward entrepreneur- ial success on excellence. In contrast, other high-end ho- tel islands (of different individual hotel groups) are more concerned about the keywords relating to stakeholders and morals. There are two islands of mid-range hotel brands; one from the same hotel group while the other consists of differ- ent brands. It is interesting to see the mid-range chain-ho- tel group emphasising the keywords relating to the moral cluster. This implies the same results as the other high-end chain-hotel island and further explains that the chain-ho- tel groups, both at high-end or mid-range, are putting the stakeholder’s benefits on priority. Considering that most of the chain-hotel groups are listed companies, the stake- holders’ interests should be prioritised. On the other hand, another mid-ranged hotel island of hotel brands owned by different companies reveals that the most shared values re- late to ‘tradition’ and are generally perceived as the core service qualities expected by customers. These findings clearly support the proposal from Pedersen, Gwozdz, & Hvass (2018), namely that organisational values are vital to growth and development of an organisation as well as with the findings from Wilkins, Butt, & Annabi (2018), that set the influence of these values in behaviour of their employ- ees as well. Based on these findings of the island analysis, we can answer our second research question: How are the hotel brands bonding by organisational values? In some cases, regardless of the brand range, stakeholder’s bene- fits are seen as the priority. Other cases show ‘tradition’ as their primary value cluster, which is generally perceived as the core service qualities expected by customers, reaching only one segment of the stakeholders. 5.3 Theoretical and Practical Implications This study is a good attempt to demonstrate the mixed approach: content analysis with keyword clustering and island approach within network analytic procedure. The integrated approach of methodology offers a more holistic understanding of the case being studied, with both meth- ods complementing each other. Our study has also offered some practical implications, specifically the strategists in the field. Results from the keyword clusters offer an implication that organisations (hotel brands) are generally the attributes from one of the four clusters. The keywords are representing attributes or values of the hotel brands. These attributes are determined by a set of actors, including business strategies, value propositions and organisational cultures. The interlinks be- tween clusters show that organisations may have attributes from more than one cluster. Organisations can embrace their list of values without being bounded by the clusters of keywords but form their uniqueness as indicated by Gehani (2001). These practical implications are directly useful for managements of hotel chains as well as other managements in understanding the in-depth importance of organisational values with relationship to brand image. The results of the island analysis offer practical impli- cations to hotel brand strategists as well. Organisational values are determined by both internal and external fac- tors, many of them affected by organisational culture (Pfeiffer, Goodstein, & Nolan, 1985). Factors such as chain affiliation, hotel star rating, and size are essential for defining organisational values of a certain hotel (Dief & Font, 2012). Therefore our primary suggestion is to de- termine organisational values through situational analysis before confirming organisational values and then setting organisational strategies on these values. 5.4 Limitations and possibilities of further research This study, however, has some limitations. Since most of the hotel brands in this study are from within Europe, it may be possible that we have missed some regionally big brands outside it, namely those from Asia. These regional brands may also reflect the strong traditional values of the specific culture. Therefore, this study can be extended to the regional level in order to explore the possible links be- tween hotel brands and values. Another option to be con- sidered for further research is changing the environment. Instead of hotel chains it would be potentially interesting to perform similar research in almost any other business field. Such examples may include travel agencies, sports franchises, food related industry and many more. Regard- ing the sample collection approach, we decided to only focus on values that are clearly stated on the hotel brands web pages rather than on other sources of information. 6 Conclusions Results of value clusters identified the values shared among hotel brands within four predominant dimensions, namely the entrepreneurial, stakeholders, moral, and tra- dition. The results from cluster analysis imply the two 189 Organizacija, V olume 54 Issue 3, August 2021 Research Papers Allison, J. (2019). 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(2019). Stability and change of basic personal values in early adolescence: A 2‐year longitudinal study. Journal of Personality, 00, 1-17. DOI: 10.1111/jopy.12502 Waltman, L., van Eck, N. J., & Noyons, E. C. M. (2010). A unified approach to mapping and clustering of bib- liometric networks. Journal of Informetrics, 4(4), 629- 635. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.joi.2010.07.002 Wilkins, S., Butt, M. M., & Annabi, C. A. (2018). The in- fluence of organizational identification on employee attitudes and behaviours in multinational higher edu- cation institutions. Journal of Higher Education Policy and Management, 40(1), 48-66. https://doi.org/10.108 0/1360080X.2017.1411060 Kristijan Breznik is Associate Professor in Mathematics and Research Methodology at the International School for Social and Business Studies in Celje, Slovenia. His main research interests, beside social network analysis, are data analysis, graph theory, database development, entrepreneurial networks as well as sport statistics. Currently, he is Editor-in-chief of International Journal of Management, Knowledge and Learning and member of the Editorial Boards of some prominent journals. ORCID iD: https://orcid.org/0000- 0002-8136-9592 Kris Law holds a PhD in Organizational Learning and an MPhil in Machining Processes, both obtained from the City University of Hong Kong. Upon her PhD graduation, she undertook a post-doctoral research scholarship in the Graduate Institute of Industrial Engineering, National Taiwan University on a regional high-tech industry study. Her expertise lies in Organizational Learning and Development (OLD), Technological Innovation and Entrepreneurship (TIE), Engineering Education, and Smart Industrial Initiatives (SII). ORCID iD: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3659- 0033 Mitja Gorenak got his Ph.D. in the area of Human Resources Management from Faculty of Organizational Sciences, University of Maribor, he works for Faculty of Tourism, University of Maribor. He is also an adjunct professor at the University of Lapland, specializing in human resources in tourism sector with special interest in values, competencies, and ethical conduct of individuals. He is also a licenced tour guide in Slovenia. ORCID iD: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8786-1959 192 Organizacija, V olume 54 Issue 3, August 2021 Research Papers Razkritje o blagovnih znamkah hotelov: vsebinska analiza povezav z organizacijskimi vrednotami Ozadje/Namen: Članek proučuje, kako skozi perspektivo organizacijskih vrednot lahko razumemo medsebojno povezavo med blagovnimi znamkami hotelov in njihovo kategorizacijo. Študija predpostavlja, da je pomen organiza - cijskih vrednot v storitvenem sektorju ena od ključnih sestavin rasti in razvoja organizacije. Metode: Analiza konceptualne vsebine je bila uporabljena na naboru organizacijskih vrednot, ki jih najdemo na spletnih mestih 100 najboljših evropskih hotelskih blagovnih znamk. Za določitev gručastih dimenzij organizacijskih vrednot med različnimi hotelskimi blagovnimi znamkami so bili uporabljene napredne metode iz analize omrežij. Rezultati: Rezultati so opredelili skupne organizacijske vrednote med hotelskimi blagovnimi znamkami, razvrščeni- mi v štiri prevladujoče dimenzije: podjetništvo, deležniki, moralnost in tradicija. Študija je potrdila široko vsebinsko variabilnost organizacijskih vrednot v hotelski industriji Ugotovitve in zaključki: Analiza posameznih dimenzij je opredelila skupine najpomembnejših besed iz izjav o vrednotah in ugotovila, da sta med različnimi blagovnimi znamkami hotelov zelo cenjeni »podjetniška« in »etična« dimenzija. Nadaljnji pristop analize skupin na ravni blagovnih znamk razkriva tudi, da organizacijske vrednote v tem sektorju določajo številni dejavniki, vključno z obsegom in tržnim položajem. Rezultati študije ponujajo teoretične in praktične ugotovitve, ki bodo v pomoč strategom hotelskih blagovnih znamk, da bi bolje razumeli njihov trenutni in lažje dosegli želeni položaj v sektorju. Ključne besede: Organizacijske vrednote, Hotelirstvo, Blagovne znamke, Analiza vsebine, Analiza omrežij