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The purpose of this study was to investigate the causal configuration effect of the determinants of tourism entrepreneurship in rural tourism destinations based on the capital framework.

The data for this research were collected from a sample comprising 140 rural enterprise owners in China and analyzed via fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis.

All the investigated capital factors were relevant to tourism entrepreneurship, although they only facilitated tourism entrepreneurship when combined. It was observed here that four capital configurations promoted tourism entrepreneurship in rural destinations, highlighting the multiple paths toward rural tourism entrepreneurship. The human and physical capitals of entrepreneurs were key to tourism entrepreneurship.

It is relevant for entrepreneurs and managers to realize that there are multiple strategies for promoting tourism entrepreneurship in rural destinations. The four capital configurations revealed here offer guidelines for evaluating the potential and possibility of rural tourism entrepreneurship. Local managers and governments must prioritize human and physical capitals when the venture capital and resources are limited.

First, the findings of this study deepened the understanding of the factors influencing tourism entrepreneurship using the capital framework. Second, it revealed that capital configurations determined tourism entrepreneurship and that existence and interactions of the various forms of capital affect rural entrepreneurship. Third, this study revealed that the success of tourism entrepreneurship depends on the entrepreneur’s ability to combine the various forms of capital and resources.

本研究旨在基于资本框架研究乡村目的地旅游创业决定因素的因果组态效应。

本研究的数据来源于中国140家乡村企业创业者的样本, 采用模糊集定性比较分析方法(fsQCA)进行分析。

本研究发现所有被调查的资本因素都与旅游创业有关, 但只有将它们结合起来才能产生旅游创业。本文揭示了促进乡村旅游创业的四种资本组态, 反映了乡村旅游创业的多元路径。创业者拥有的人力资本和物质资本在旅游创业中发挥着关键作用。

创业者和管理者需要认识到, 有多种路径可以促进乡村目的地的旅游创业。本研究揭示的四种资本组态可以为评估旅游创业的创业潜力和可能性提供指导。在创业资本和资源有限的情况下, 政府和地方管理者应优先支持人力资本和物质资本。

首先, 我们的研究结果通过资本框架加深了对旅游创业影响因素的理解。其次, 本研究发现旅游创业是由资本组态决定的。各种类型资本的存在和相互作用影响着乡村创业。第三, 本文揭示了成功的旅游创业取决于创业者融合各类资本和资源的能力。

Los datos de esta investigación se recopilaron sobre una muestra de 140 propietarios de empresas rurales en China y se analizaron mediante un análisis comparativo cualitativo de conjuntos borrosos (fsQCA).

El objetivo de este estudio fue investigar el efecto de la configuración causal de los determinantes del emprendimiento turístico en destinos de turismo rural basados en el marco de capital.

Todos los factores de capital investigados son relevantes para el emprendimiento turístico, aunque solo facilitaron el emprendimiento turístico cuando se han combinado. Además, se observó que cuatro configuraciones de capital promueven el emprendimiento turístico en destinos rurales, destacando los múltiples caminos hacia el emprendimiento turístico rural. Los capitales humano y físico de los emprendedores son clave para el emprendimiento turístico.

Es relevante que los empresarios y gestores se den cuenta de la existencia de múltiples estrategias a la hora de promover el emprendimiento turístico en los destinos rurales. Las cuatro configuraciones de capital reveladas aquí ofrecen pautas para evaluar el potencial y la posibilidad del emprendimiento en turismo rural. Los administradores y gobiernos locales deben priorizar los capitales humanos y físicos cuando el capital de riesgo y los recursos son limitados.

Primero, los hallazgos han profundizado en la comprensión de los factores que influyen en el espíritu empresarial turístico que emplea el marco de capital. En segundo lugar, se revela que las configuraciones de capital determinan el emprendimiento turístico y que la existencia y las interacciones de las diversas formas de capital afectan el emprendimiento rural. En tercer lugar, este estudio revela que el éxito del emprendimiento turístico depende de la capacidad del empresario para combinar las diversas formas de capital y recursos.

Entrepreneurship in the rural hospitality and tourism sector (RHT) has received wide attention in the past decade. However, a systematic review on this topic is currently lacking. This study aims to track the progress of the RHT and entrepreneurship literature by examining the various thematic research areas, identifying the research gaps and forecasting avenues of future research on the topic.

This paper catalogs and synthesizes the body of literature from the year 2000–2020 using a systematic literature review methodology. After discussing a brief history of RHT and entrepreneurship, the current study presents a review of 101 research articles.

The review highlights that RHT and entrepreneurship have received relatively limited attention from entrepreneurship journals. The content analysis revealed different gaps and limitations in the understanding of entrepreneurship in RHT, including a predominance of qualitative studies with limited theoretically-grounded and generalizable empirical studies. Furthermore, a high concentration of studies is from European countries. Six main thematic research areas were identified, namely, barriers and enablers, the roles of an entrepreneur, women in RHT, influencers of firm performance, innovation and value creation and methodological commonalities. The review also advances an RHT entrepreneurship ecosystem framework to summarize the findings.

Six promising research avenues are outlined based on the six themes identified. The suggested research questions draw from allied literature on small and medium businesses, innovation, women entrepreneurship and institutions to encourage the interdisciplinary cross-pollination of ideas. The findings are summarized in a novel research framework.

The exploration of performance determinants in social enterprises has gained increasing relevance among researchers and practitioners, particularly in rural tourism. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the contributions of transformational leadership and social entrepreneurship to the performance of social enterprises in the context of rural tourism. Further, the mediating roles of social capital, creativity and social value were investigated.

Data were gathered through a survey of 168 employees of social enterprises operating in the rural tourism setting. Eight surveyors were sent out to conduct the survey. Data were analyzed by structural equation modeling (SEM) using AMOS 18.0.

The results of the SEM suggested that transformational leadership is positively associated with social value, social capital and performance of social enterprise. In addition, social entrepreneurship had a significant influence on social value, social capital and performance of social enterprise. Creativity and social value predicts the performance of social enterprise. Further, social capital was found to have a positive relationship with creativity. Finally, the mediating roles of social capital, creativity and social value were also confirmed. The findings thus highlight the power of the social value creation and social capital in the social enterprises operating in the rural destinations.

The findings assert that social entrepreneurship and transformational leadership are key sources of social value creation, social capital and creativity in rural tourism context indicating the need for additional efforts on this kind of entrepreneurial activity. The findings can motivate policymakers to promote social entrepreneurship in rural tourism destinations as a means of stimulating bottom-up social capital and social value creation.

This study is among the first to examine the hypothesized relationships focusing on tourism social enterprises.

The starting premise of this study is that women's empowerment is the goal for self-realization and that the support that comes from local tourism stakeholders represents an adequate base. In many rural areas, women have established self-help groups (SHGs), which facilitate the interaction with a wide range of stakeholders. The objective of this paper is to investigate the effects of SHGs on female entrepreneurship and self-employment in tourism.

To examine the research question, this study adopted a quantitative research that included a sample of 513 women in a less-advanced rural area in Serbia. For the data analysis, the generalized linear regression model (GLM) was used.

According to the results, self-employment is the leading goal of women's empowerment.

The main limitation in the research and the authors’ suggestion for future research is to increase the sample size of female respondents, so examination of their attitudes and role in the travel business in their local settings might reach higher significance. The second issue that the authors would like to point out is a highly local character of our study, so the future research should involve other rural areas in the country and from abroad (e.g. similar undeveloped countryside with noticeable, active women's role in local entrepreneurship).

The most important practical implications of this paper are twofold: (1) the results of the research have shown that the tourist potential of rural areas can be enhanced through local tourism stakeholders' support; (2) women without professional interest or jobs in rural areas, especially in the areas where the population is traditionally dominated by men (husband/brother/father), have a chance to earn and to be economically more independent. This research can affect future studies to investigate other aspects of empowerment depending on the difference of regions, from one side, and also alternative opportunities for tourism and local development in less-advanced rural areas, from another side.

The study analyzes the tourism potential of the rural areas (which are less advanced and mostly very poor in developing countries, such as Serbia). In this case, there are opportunities to increase employment, social inclusion of women, development of new tourism strategies, implementation of destination marketing, etc. Moreover, it contributes to future research in the field of stakeholders in tourism strategies.

Given limited research about how artisans become integrated into tourism, the purpose of this paper is to investigate the emergence of artisan entrepreneur–mediators who link artisans to tourism in rural areas and small cities in Portugal. Using social embeddedness as a conceptual framework, this paper views artisan entrepreneur–mediators as existing within an entrepreneurial ecosystem. The paper investigates their role within this ecosystem and how social networks influence the artisan entrepreneur–mediators’ roles in connecting artisans to creative tourism.

The paper is based on new (2017 and 2018) empirical evidence developed through two rounds of semi-structured interviews of five artisan entrepreneur–mediators.

This paper finds that artisan entrepreneur–mediators in rural areas or small cities take on multiple roles as networking agents who organize and offer creative tourism experiences, providing the missing link between artisans and tourists. An analysis of the nuances of the operations of these artisan entrepreneur–mediators suggests that high levels of social embeddedness within local rural communities are important in order for these neo-rural entrepreneurs to attain their goals.

Originality lies in the identification of a gap in artisan entrepreneurship literature in a rural context. It is the first time that a critical analysis of artisan entrepreneur–mediators who facilitate the link between artisans and tourism is carried out in terms of social embeddedness, their roles and connections to creative tourism, and types of community engagement.

This paper aims to explore how gender is “done” on farms in Sweden in the context of increased tourism and hospitality activities. The authors seek to investigate how gender is done vis-à-vis women’s farm tourism entrepreneurship. They seek to answer the questions: What has motivated the farm women to become tourism entrepreneurs? How are the gendered divisions of labor changed through women starting businesses? How does the gendered associated symbolism, as well as the identities, change?

Research has indicated that introducing tourism entrepreneurship at farms may challenge established gender relations, as many of these entrepreneurs are women. The empirical material consists of in-depth interviews with 15 women farm tourism entrepreneurs in central Sweden.

The analysis suggests that the gendered divisions of labor are not changed through the interviewed women starting tourism businesses. The authors conclude that the women build their entrepreneurship and develop some of their products on an image of rural domesticity, including a representation of themselves as traditional farm women. At the same time they are changing how gender is done through identifying as entrepreneurs and changing the use of the farms.

The authors seek to fill the research gap concerning women’s farm tourism entrepreneurship and the potential associated gendered changes. Their theoretical contribution is applying the perspective of “doing gender” and entrepreneurship, for delineating potential changes in gendered relations.

The paper seeks to explore the experiences of owners of rural tourism accommodation businesses in New Zealand within the framework of copreneurship. It aims to examine roles within copreneurial rural tourism businesses and describes and evaluates women's experiences of entrepreneurship.

The method of the research is a postal survey of rural tourism accommodation business owners complemented by in‐depth interviews with women in copreneurial business relationships. Triangulation of data sources and methods, combining qualitative and quantitative techniques enables a rich understanding of copreneurial expectations, roles and responsibilities and of women's experiences specifically.

The paper finds that the rural tourism accommodation sector in New Zealand is characterised by lifestylers and copreneurs running their businesses as a “hobby” and that non‐economic, lifestyle motivations are important stimuli to business formation. The paper also finds that any perception of copreneurship as a tool for enabling women to become freed from traditional gender roles may not equal the reality as a gendered ideology persists even through copreneurial relationships in rural tourism. Copreneurial couples appear to engage in running the accommodation business using traditional gender‐based roles mirroring those found in the private home.

The paper goes some way toward addressing the fact that there exists an underexplored and unarticulated feminine set of processes and behaviours in new venture production. In this research, women's voices were able to come through in both the survey and the interview research and their experiences are reported through their narratives. What is revealed is that a gendered ideology persists even through copreneurial relationships in rural tourism.

According to the United Nations World Tourism Organisation, sustainable tourism is a form of tourism that meets the needs of present tourists and host regions while protecting and enhancing the opportunity for the future. It is an industry that aims at having a low impact upon the environment and local culture, generating income and employment, and ensuring the conservation of local ecosystems. The aim of this paper is to examine the ways in which the development and promotion of a new tourism product based on unique rural heritage and traditions contribute to the development of sustainable tourism strategies in Romania.

This paper includes a literature review on the topic of sustainable tourism in post-conflict destinations and provides arguments for the adoption and development of sustainable tourism. Using a case study methodological approach, this paper provides an example of a sustainable tourism destination from the Central development region of Romania (Alba County, Transylvania) to depict specific sustainable tourism practices and their impact on the place, in a post-communist and post-conflict context. The study uses a comprehensive desk-research based on secondary data from key industry and academic sources.

The research findings show that rural tourism can greatly support the (re)development of post-conflict destinations, and it makes a significant contribution to the sustainable development of the Romanian tourism industry, in general, and rural economies in particular, as shown in the case examined in this paper.

This paper illustrates that fostering the unique rural heritage and traditions of a post-conflict destination can contribute to the revival and sustainable development of the place. Sustainable tourism practices contribute not only financially to a destination but also to its social infrastructures, jobs, nature conservation, adoption of new working practices and the revitalisation of passive and poor rural areas.

This paper examines and depicts rural tourism development as an innovative and sustainable strategy for Romania, a post-conflict destination that experienced severe political and social turmoil during the communist regime, and ethnic conflicts and violent events in the 1990s. The research findings may be applicable to other geographic regions and post-conflict destinations with similar contexts.