International Leadership and Change Strategy.docx

International Leadership and Change Strategy. An important assignment.

1. Submission Date: 14
th
May, 2025
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Module Title International Leadership and
Change Strategy
Module Code 2301
ASSIGNMENT TITLE Coursework 2: Strategic Report

2. Contents
1.0 Introduction........................................................................................................................................................3
2.0 Discussion and Analysis....................................................................................................................................3
2.1 Internal and external environmental analysis.................................................................................................3
2.1.1 Internal factors: Value chain analysis.....................................................................................................3
2.1.2 External Analysis: Porter’s five forces....................................................................................................4
3.0 Evaluation of strategic change options...............................................................................................................5
3.1 Deliberate planning........................................................................................................................................5
3.2 Emergent strategy...........................................................................................................................................5
3.3 Short-term and long-term implications of the strategies................................................................................6
3.3.1 Deliberate planning.................................................................................................................................6
3.3.2 Emergent strategy....................................................................................................................................7
4.0 Conclusion..........................................................................................................................................................8
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3. 1.0 Introduction
The study evaluates the strategic transformation scenario of Airbnb which stands as a top
global system for short-term rentals alongside accommodation services. The main purpose of
this analysis is evaluating the best method for Airbnb to execute strategic modifications while
adapting to their changing internal resources alongside emerging market conditions. This
study utilizes strategic analysis of current organizational positioning and change options
evaluation to deliver established recommendations toward sustainable leadership with
competitive advantages. Airbnb introduced its peer-to-peer business mode in 2008 which
transformed hospitality by giving property owners the option to rent out their spaces to
travellers. Airbnb operates across more than 190 international markets but continues to deal
with various difficulties because of regulations together with changing customer patterns and
worldwide events like the COVID-19 outbreak (Airbnb, 2024). However, strategic leadership
at Airbnb faces the pressing need to adjust its approach because it must deal with important
internal and external conditions. Evaluation of the operational value chain along with the
response to industry pressures should be done through Porter's Five Forces framework. Two
strategic change options will be proposed within the report to help Airbnb leadership create
decisions that support their long-term objectives while representing future considerations.
2.0 Discussion and Analysis
2.1 Internal and external environmental analysis
2.1.1 Internal factors: Value chain analysis
Organisational culture: Host-centric and experience-driven
From Airbnb’s perspective, its business focusses on delivering unique and personalized
experiences, which is unbeaten as the organisational culture. It supports the host in managing
his property: from taking charge of keys, cleaning and presenting facilities, all crucial for the
guest experience. By taking this decentralized approach, it promotes ownership of hosts and
in turn hosts feel obliged to maintain high service levels (Medeiros et al, 2022). The mutual
rating system (whereby hosts and guests rate one another) of course reinforces quality and
accountability. Specifically, Super hosts are hosts who provide exceptional performance, and
such hosts have more visibility and more earning potential. For the sake of Airbnb’s
reputation, as well as constantly providing quality service on its global listings, this culture of
mutual trust and excellence is critical.
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4. Leadership structure: Decentralized platform model
Decentralized platform model enables scalability and flexibility of Airbnb. It enables hosts to
manage their listings independently and therefore minimizes operational overhead but
accelerate the expansion into new markets. The support tools provided to hosts include
dynamic pricing recommendations, professional photography services, and 24/7 customer
support (Negi and Tripathi, 2023). Such a model is not just empowering for the hosts but also
vital for the company to stay adaptive in the changing market dynamics, and is undoubtedly
the key to the company’s strategic leadership.
2.1.2 External Analysis: Porter’s five forces
Competitive rivalry: Intense market competition
Competition in the vacation rental market is extremely high with lots of players who have
established themselves seeking to take market share from each other. Airbnb has lots of
competition from services including Booking, which had 28 million total listings, and Vrbo,
with 2 million listings worldwide (Dogru et al, 2023). This competitive landscape
necessitates continuous innovation and differentiation. Competitive rivalry with other
vacation rental sites is met with Airbnb’s unique accommodations and personal experiences
to offer value propositions, which are difficult for competitors to replicate.
Threats of substitutes: Diverse options to users
Airbnb has an abundance of substitutes and is susceptible to losses due to the threat of
substitute. Traditional hotels, motels, and other home-sharing platforms like HomeAway
offer similar lodging services, often with established brand recognition and customer loyalty
(Mintel, 2025a). Therefore, Airbnb extended its range of offers by featuring special stays like
treehouses and castles and curated experiences that offer guests a local and authentic
experience. Since Airbnb is a different offering of the conventional lodging options, these
initiatives intend to set its footprints apart from other offerings and make it more attractive to
all sort of customers (Chen et al, 2022). Moreover, identification and implication of these
internal and external factors have huge impacts on strategic choices, decision, and futures of
Airbnb. The company maintains strong internal organisational culture and organizational
decentralisation that allow it to remain responsive to market changes while remaining agile
(Eurostat, 2022).
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5. Also, strategic decisions regarding product differentiation and market positioning are
influenced by the external recognition of the presence of very intense market competition and
the possibility of substitutes on the market. Airbnb aligns its internal capabilities against the
external market requirements and thereby ensuring the sustainability of the firm in the
turbulent hospitality industry (Gyódi, 2022).
3.0 Evaluation of strategic change options
Based on the internal and external environmental analysis of Airbnb, following two strategic
change options have been outlined. These are called Deliberate planning and Emergent
Strategy.
3.1 Deliberate planning
In deliberate planning, Airbnb follows a systematic strategic plan to ensure that is effectively
achieves its planned growth by considering market expansion strategies, customer trends, and
technological developments. For instance, the global vacation rental market as estimated to
hit $119 billion by the year 2027 due to the rising trends such as experiential travel and
working from distant locations (Bartosova et al, 2023). Airbnb must pay a close attention to
the segment size, where it still has opportunities for expansion, but competition is not as great
(like Southeast Asia or Latin America). In particular, by understanding what aspects are
considered important by customers, including flexible cancellation and check-in policies and
scheduling, long-term stays for nomad workers, Airbnb will be able to serve current travel
patterns. Undeniably, assessing the strengths and weakness of the competitors like the vast
hotel accommodation by the company like Booking.com as opposed to a scarce home-sharing
service provision by Airbnb will assist the organization develop a better value proposition
(Mintel, 2025b). Lastly, SEO through technological trajectory such as of artificial intelligence
pricing tools or aspects like virtual tour can improve host performance and user experiences.
3.2 Emergent strategy
Airbnb also can employ the concept of emergent strategy, which is used in conditions of fast
changing environment, in this case, for example, travelling world-wide and most important in
different countries regulations. It is a kind of testing of various external conditions
(restrictions in movement, slowing the economy, changes in legislation) and the development
of responses by the managerial team (Errida and Lotfi, 2021). The design thinking process
educates people to devise people-oriented solutions as per their experience and suggestions
regarding an enhanced booking service or a communal housing methodology.
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6. Indeed, it allows the company to constantly test, implement and grow new services rapidly
this is especially crucial when it comes to such features as, for instance, “Airbnb
Experiences” or “Live Anywhere” options (Mintel, 2025b). Altogether, these approaches
enhance Airbnb’s robustness of operation in the volatile market conditions for long-run
sustenance.
3.3 Short-term and long-term implications of the strategies
3.3.1 Deliberate planning
Short-term implications:
Benefit – Clear Operational Focus:
Strategic planning provides a clear and logical approach that ensures that Airbnb fits all
operations to the intended growth plans (Bagga et al, 2023). For instance, Airbnb posted a net
income of 4.8 billion in 2023 to show its solid grounds for reinvestment into the right market
growth (Airbnb, 2025). Targeted regional planning helps the leadership to allocate the right
resources for those key areas which in turn boosts productivity of certain teams for better T
product-market fit.
Drawback – Slower Adaptability:
Nevertheless, a deliberate planning model restricts the firm’s ability to respond to any
changes in the market. The pandemic also showed that there is a great danger of getting stuck
with a rigid plan, not least that it happened to Airbnb. The company was abruptly let go of
25% of its employees in early 2020 due to low client demand of traveling services pointing to
the fact that and plan driven strategic orientation does not accomplish well in an unstable
environment (Kirtley and O'Mahony, 2023).
Long-term implications
Benefit: Sustainable Market Expansion:
Another advantage of deliberate planning is that it is possible to go about sustaining growth
that may be anticipated in the future. Therefore, it is possible to state that by defining and
selecting large and untapped markets and comprehending segment characteristics, Airbnb
will achieve stable revenue rates.
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7. For instance, an emphasis on long-term rental arrangements is suitable for working remotely
— a 25% growing clientship area Airbnb promoted under the “Live and Work Anywhere”
campaign in 2022 (Bagga et al, 2023).
Drawback: Risk of Strategic Rigidity:
Thus, the deliberate planning strategy may even work against innovative thinking in the long
run. These may include the place becoming too popular in other areas like, experiences, or
community-based tourism. This rigidity could also influence the organization’s ability to hold
on to its talent, particularly, in a firm that prides itself on encouraging inventive and
independent-minded individuals to succeed (Rego et al, 2021).
3.3.2 Emergent strategy
Short-term implications
Advantage: High Responsiveness and Innovation
Airbnb has the ability to test and launch new innovations with the help of emergent strategy
and tools such as Agile methodology. For example, in 2020, Airbnb quickly adapted to the
situation and developed Online Experiences, a platform to sell virtual sightseeing tours and
workshops for hosts (Rego et al, 2021). This approach was especially important to sustain
people’s interest on the platform and diversify revenues streams during unstable times.
Drawback: Operational Uncertainty:
This is a drawback since this can result in confusion and incompatibility among different
teams in the organization due to ever changing objectives. Airbnb’s organizational structure
is very decentralised and hosts play most of the central roles, if no clear direction is provided,
the internal teams may lack a proper means of implementation (Saarinen, 2021). The rate of
iterations also puts more pressure on the technical and the customer support, meaning that
some services may be compromised and the user experience may be affected in the short
term.
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8. Long-term implications
Long-Term Implications
Advantage: Organisational agility and resilience
First, flexibility and adaptability of an organisation plays a key role in determining the
effectiveness of its functioning as well as it brings resiliency.
Also, long-term view of the emergent strategy creates an organization that is capable of
operating successfully in complex environment. Categories introduced back in 2022 as a way
for guests to search by type or style of the stay which reflect the positive aspects of user-
oriented, lean approach (Kirtley and O'Mahony, 2023). These capabilities aid Airbnb in
managing customer behaviour dynamics and policy alterations.
Drawback: Strategic Inconsistency
While iterative designing is helpful to tailor solutions according to user feedback, the lack of
a system architecture for Hacker News over such a long term generates a threat where the
site’s brand is watered down. If leadership often changes targets, then the stakeholders such
as the hosts, investors and the customers are likely to be confused with what is expected of
them (He et al, 2023). This may compromise the credibility and lower Airbnb’s advantage in
an industry where branding and quality delivery are key success factors.
4.0 Conclusion
Overall, the report analysed the internal and external environment of Airbnb company to
identify how strategic leaders can manage change. From the value chain analysis, two
strategic internal resources that were deemed essential by the host organisation are a good
organizational culture and decentralised leadership. These elements relate to operations and
flexibility, two critical success factors for growth and innovation on Airbnb’s business model.
Also, externally, the competitive rivalries were viewed to be high based on Porter’s Five
Forces, and the threat of substitutes was expected to rise. Airbnb’s response of differentiation
through the unique stay, quality experience, and users’ trust mechanisms yet forms the key
strategy in the intensely competitive market. Also, two strategic change options that are of
great strategic significance were identified. The deliberate planning approach is a systematic
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9. approach towards the marketing by identifying segment size, needs of consumers and
knowledge of the competition.
Whereas, the emergent strategy approach, which is based on the best practices of agility,
scenarios, and design thinking, promotes creativity and flexibility for the unknown
conditions. In the future, the leadership of the Airbnb has to find the middle ground between
these approaches. Thus, integrating the use of deliberate planning and emergent strategies
will help the organisation to grow, stay profitable, and address unpredictable challenges
within the travel and hospitality markets.
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10. References
Airbnb, 2024. ‘What it is and how it works [Online]. Accessed at
https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/2503, Accessed on [22.04.2025]
Bagga, S.K., Gera, S. and Haque, S.N., 2023. The mediating role of organizational culture:
Transformational leadership and change management in virtual teams. Asia Pacific
Management Review, 28(2), pp.120-131.
Bartosova, V., Drobyazko, S., Bielialov, T., Nechyporuk, L. and Dzhyhora, O., 2023.
Company strategic change management in the open innovation system. Journal of Open
Innovation: Technology, Market, and Complexity, 9(2), p.100087.
Chen, C.M., Lin, Y.C., Hung, W.H. and Jih, C.Y., 2022. The effect of Airbnb and business
cycle on the price elasticity of demand in the hotel industry. Current issues in
tourism, 25(19), pp.3080-3085.
Dogru, T., Hanks, L., Suess, C., Line, N. and Mody, M., 2023. The resilience of the lodging
industry during the pandemic: Hotels vs. Airbnb. International Journal of Hospitality
Management, 109, p.103406.
Errida, A. and Lotfi, B., 2021. The determinants of organizational change management
success: Literature review and case study. International Journal of Engineering Business
Management, 13, p.18479790211016273.
Eurostat, (2022) Tourism statistics at regional level. Available at:
https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?
title=Tourism_statistics_at_regional_level (Accessed: 22 April 2025).
Gyódi, K., 2022. Airbnb and hotels during COVID-19: Different strategies to
survive. International Journal of Culture, Tourism and Hospitality Research, 16(1), pp.168-
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He, Z., Huang, H., Choi, H. and Bilgihan, A., 2023. Building organizational resilience with
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Mintel (2025a). UK Touring and Adventure Holidays Market Report. Available at:
https://store.mintel.com/report/uk-touring-and-adventure-holidays-market-report [Accessed
22 Apr. 2025].
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11. Mintel, (2025b) UK holiday review - market report. Available at:
https://store.mintel.com/report/uk-holiday-review-market-report (Accessed: 22 April 2025).
Negi, G. and Tripathi, S., 2023. Airbnb phenomenon: a review of literature and future
research directions. Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Insights, 6(5), pp.1909-1925.
Rêgo, B.S., Jayantilal, S., Ferreira, J.J. and Carayannis, E.G., 2021. Digital transformation
and strategic management: A systematic review of the literature. Journal of the Knowledge
Economy, pp.1-28.
Saarinen, J., 2021. Tourism for change: Change management towards sustainable tourism
development. In Tourism, change and the Global South (pp. 15-32). Routledge.
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