The influence of allocentrism on residents’ sustainable entrepreneurial intentions in collectivist rural tourism destinations – a perspective from face and guanxi

Abstract

Given the dual research gap between the topic of sustainable entrepreneurship in tourism and non-Western cultural contexts, this study integrates social identity and social embeddedness theories and introduces the concepts of face and guanxi to discuss the influence of residents’ allocentrism on their sustainable entrepreneurial intentions (SEI) in collectivist rural tourism destinations. The study adopted a dominant-sequential mixed research design. The study finds that residents’ allocentrism can directly influence or indirectly stimulate SEI by enhancing their desire to gain face and reinforcing guanxi. Residents desiring to pursue face are more willing to engage in sustainable entrepreneurship. Residents with stronger guanxi are more confident in overcoming the additional risks associated with maintaining entrepreneurial sustainability. This study suggests that the entrepreneurial process does not have to be a highly individualistic pursuit, and collectivist cultural values play a critical role in entrepreneurial decision-making processes regarding sustainability.