TY - JOUR
T1 - Entrepreneurial behaviour, firm size and financial performance
T2 - the case of rural tourism family firms
AU - Kallmuenzer, Andreas
AU - Peters, Mike
PY - 2018/1/2
Y1 - 2018/1/2
N2 - Family firms dominate the rural tourism industry, and within these firms family related interests guide entrepreneurial behaviour. This study utilises the entrepreneurial orientation (EO)–performance relationship to investigate which kind of entrepreneurial behaviour is important in order for rural tourism family firms to perform well. Considering the moderating effect of firm size, findings based on a sample of 198 firms and 4 follow-up interviews with owner-managers show that Innovativeness and Proactiveness are relevant variables to explain performance, while Risk-Taking is not. In addition, the Proactiveness–performance effect was negatively impacted by micro firm size. Initiatives to foster firm collaboration to overcome the disadvantage of small firm size and to stimulate entrepreneurship and innovation are suggested.
AB - Family firms dominate the rural tourism industry, and within these firms family related interests guide entrepreneurial behaviour. This study utilises the entrepreneurial orientation (EO)–performance relationship to investigate which kind of entrepreneurial behaviour is important in order for rural tourism family firms to perform well. Considering the moderating effect of firm size, findings based on a sample of 198 firms and 4 follow-up interviews with owner-managers show that Innovativeness and Proactiveness are relevant variables to explain performance, while Risk-Taking is not. In addition, the Proactiveness–performance effect was negatively impacted by micro firm size. Initiatives to foster firm collaboration to overcome the disadvantage of small firm size and to stimulate entrepreneurship and innovation are suggested.
KW - Rural tourism
KW - entrepreneurial behaviour
KW - family firm
KW - firm size
KW - quantitative
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85026877035&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - https://doi.org/10.1080/02508281.2017.1357782
DO - https://doi.org/10.1080/02508281.2017.1357782
M3 - Article
SN - 0250-8281
VL - 43
SP - 2
EP - 14
JO - Tourism Recreation Research
JF - Tourism Recreation Research
IS - 1
ER -