Work

Opportunity-oriented entrepreneurial identity and innovation orientation in lifestyle-oriented tourism ventures

Year: 2026

Type: article

Abstract: Lifestyle entrepreneurs are recognized as important actors in tourism economies, particularly through their locally embedded practices, personal values, and contributions to distinctive visitor experiences. However, the relationships between lifestyle-oriented entrepreneurial characteristics, local practices, community integration, and innovation orientation remain empirically underexplored. The empirical model tests how opportunity-oriented entrepreneurial identity, local hiring, local business collaboration, local supply, and community integration are associated with self-reported innovation orientation. Findings show that opportunity-oriented entrepreneurial identity is strongly and positively associated with self-reported innovation orientation. Local hiring and local business collaboration are positively associated with community integration. The study contributes by offering a more precise account of how an opportunity-oriented identity is related to innovation orientation among small tourism entrepreneurs with lifestyle-oriented profiles. The findings should be interpreted as applying to this purposive sample and to self-reported innovation orientation, rather than to objectively measured innovation outputs or confirmed community development outcomes.

Source: Small Enterprise Research

DOI: 10.1080/13215906.2026.2685211

Authors: Emma Verri, Álvaro Dias

Institutions: Iscte – Instituto Universitário de Lisboa, César Ritz Colleges, Unidade de Investigação em Desenvolvimento Empresarial

Language: English

Topic: Entrepreneurship Studies and Influences

Subfield: Management of Technology and Innovation

Field: Business, Management and Accounting

Domain: Social Sciences

SDG: Decent work and economic growth

Open Access status: hybrid

Funder: Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia