Leadership and Entrepreneurship for Creativity and Survival of Tourism Villages in the Covid-19 Times: the Moderating Role of External Support

Abstract

Purpose: This research has the objective of developing a theoretical model to provide insights into the association between leadership and entrepreneurship with tourism villages' ability to create creative products and survivability, while underlying the moderating role of external supports in such relationships.  Empirically, this research is in-time since the government had priovided significant supports to the tourism  during the COVID-19 pandemic.   Theoretical framework: The current research takes the perspective of the rural tourism and creative tourism development (Raymond, 2007; Wu, et al., 2017). While past research has explored the role of leadership and entrepreneurship in the Small and Medium Enterprises context (Aslam and Awang, 2015; Zadel and Rudan, 2019), a dearth of research on those roles on Therefore there is still much to examine on the relationships between variables in a comprehensive model integrating leadership, entrepreneurship, creative product outcome, and business survival. Moreover, the external supports were included in the model as a moderating variable.   Design/methodology/approach:  Quantitative research was conducted at tourism villages in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. Data were analyzed using SEM-PLS. The sample group consisted of 154 respondents who were tourism villages' managers.   Findings:  Results show that (1) Tourism Village Leadership influences positively Creative Product Outcome and Business Survival, (2) Tourism Village Entrepreneurship influences positively Creative Product Outcome and Business Survival, (3) External Support moderates the influence of Tourism Village Leadership on Creative Product Outcome and Business Survival, 4) External Support moderates the influence of Tourism Village Entrepreneurship on Business Survival.  However, External Support does not moderate the influence of Tourism Village Entrepreneurship on Creative Product Outcomes.   Research, Practical & Social implications:  Such results portray the importance of leadership and entrepreneurship as well as external support in sustaining a tourism village.   Originality/value: The current research is particularly significant in the study of tourism village tourism development and at the same time theoretically develops a model that connects the variables that are important in the development of rural areas, namely leadership, entrepreneurship, and the ability of local communities to develop creative tourism products and survive in a business manner.  As the moderating variable, the external role becomes important to assess its role in strengthening or weakening the potential that village communities have