Networks and Entrepreneurship in the Pioneers of Spanish tourism. The Meliá Tourist Group (1932-1973)
Meliá Hotels International is the 19th largest hotel chain in the world, in number of rooms, and the only Spanish hotel chain listed on the stock exchange. This dissertation studies the formation and growth of Meliá in Spain and its early internationalisation from the perspective of the business networks developed by its founder José Meliá Sinisterra. Following the sociological tradition of Hiatt et al. (2009), Haveman et al. (2012), Schneiberg, King and Smith (2008) and Lippmann and Aldrich (2016), I understand that entrepreneurship is embedded in the collective lived experience of people, in particular historical moments and places (Jack and Anderson, 2002). My research aims to analyse how the complex and changing context experienced by Meliá informed the nature and development of the entrepreneurial networks that enabled him to create and internationalise the company prior to 1973. Thi work responds to Welter et al.'s (2017) warning about the importance of context for entrepreneurship studies and Wadhawani et al.'s (2020) more recent calling about the opportunity to develop greater historical sensitivity in research in this field.
