Ice Bucket Challenge, Butterfly Effect, and Hotels’ Strategic Configurations – The Case of the Hotel Industry in China

ÂThis study aims to construct a typology of hotels’ strategic configurations based on the Butterfly Effect in the event of the Ice Bucket Challenge in the Chinese hotel industry. We employed the BDS test and analogy inference method to infer the strategic configurations and strategic configuration matrix of the hotel industry based on the chaos theory. The strategic configurations and configuration matrix of the hotel industry were identified through the Ice Bucket Challenge and Butterfly Effect, which correspond to the chaotic and deep regularities/attractors of the chaos theory. The implication for hotel operations is to survive and surpass this complex system and dynamic competition under the strategic configurations and configuration matrix, which entails cooperation in the industry structure and pursuit of the blue-ocean strategy, a way to work in a marketplace that is free of competitors, through a strategy of service innovation.