Restructuring institutional entrepreneurship in tourism SMEs: a multi-case analysis

Purpose – Small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are critical to enhancing economic growth and the rejuvenation of tourism destinations. However, current research offers limited insight into the broader evolutionary logic behind tourism SMEs as a collective effort by various stakeholders. This paper aims to use an institutional entrepreneurship lens to analyze the evolution process of tourism SMEs. Design/methodology/approach – Data were collected from three representative cases in China, with responses from 80 interviewees, including tourism SME owners and key stakeholders such as tourists, government officials and residents. Thematic analysis was applied to examine the data across cases, identifying both common patterns and contextual variations within the institutional entrepreneurship framework. Findings – The three cases provide three different but most likely prevalent modes of development, i.e., collective-oriented, policy-oriented and market-oriented modes, which have proved to be very generalizable to other regional and international situations. The findings indicate that the transformation of tourism SMEs takes various trails in these modes that introduce a twist to the institutional entrepreneurship paradigm. To be more exact, the mobilization and legitimization sequence can be inverted, clustering is a crucial process in the development of tourism SMEs, and the sequence of clustering depends on contextual factors. Originality/value – This study not only advances theoretical understanding of how tourism SMEs interact with their institutional environments but also critically contributes to the advancement of the institutional entrepreneurship theory. The results provide practical implications for various destinations with various development modes to adequately inform the development of the tourism SME sectors.