The Impact of Training on Druze Entrepreneurs’ Attitudes Towards and Intended Behaviors Regarding Local Sustainability Governance: A Field Experiment at the Mount Carmel Biosphere Reserve

Abstract

This article expands our understanding of biosphere reserve management by exploring the effect of green business-guidance training. Biosphere reserves promote conservation while enabling sustainable use by local communities, in keeping with the notion of local sustainability governance. In practice, however, many local communities regard biosphere reserves as an obstacle to their economic growth and prosperity, resulting in active resistance to them. Given this complexity, we ask whether green business-guidance training changes entrepreneurs’ attitudes towards and intended behaviors regarding local sustainability governance. To test this question empirically, we used action research and designed a before-and-after field experiment in the Mount Carmel Biosphere Reserve in Israel. Our findings suggest that green business-guidance training has a significant positive effect on entrepreneurs’ attitudes towards and intended behaviors regarding local sustainability governance and that biosphere reserve managements can improve local sustainability governance performance via training. We discuss our findings and suggest new paths for research in theory and practice.