TOP MANAGEMENT'S ATTITUDES - BASED SWOT ANALYSIS IN THE CROATIAN HOTEL INDUSTRY

The purpose of the research is to provide an enhanced understanding of the top management team (TMT) members' attitudes about the Croatian hotel industry environment in 1999 and in 2005. Field research was carried out in 1999 and in 2005 utilizing questionnaires. The surveys examined the TMT members' attitudes to the companies' external and internal environments. SWOT analyses, correlation matrixes, reliability analyses and regression analysis were used to examine the perceived situations and tendencies in this industry. The authors' viewpoint is that it is more appropriate to stop at the SWOT analysis and to suggest that top management of hotel companies focus on improving the internal factors in the category neither strengths nor weaknesses instead of focusing on the strategies according to the TOWS matrix. This is an essential supposition for the company's effectiveness at building and gaining of competitive positions from which to act on the threat factors from the external environment. Scale reliability analysis has shown that the scales are reliable. Regression analysis and testing by means of partial correlation coefficients, used in testing the relation between the environment and the TMT dynamics, have shown that in 1999 there is no significant linear relation between the external environment and the TMT dynamics, but that the relation is indirect through the internal environment. In 2005 the same analyses indicates that there is a significant statistical relation between the external and internal environment and the TMT dynamics.