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Rural
Entrepreneurship in rural hospitality and
hospitality and tourism. A tourism

systematic literature review of

past achievements and 2521

future promises Received 30 September 2020

Revised 21 December 2020
3 February 2021
Arun Thirumalesh Madanaguli 9 February 2021
Accepted 17 February 2021
Entrepreneurship and Innovation,
Department of Social Sciences, Technology and Arts,
Luleå University of Technology, Luleå, Sweden
Puneet Kaur
Department of Psychosocial Science, University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway, and
Optentia Research Focus Area, North-West University, Vanderbijlpark, South Africa
Stefano Bresciani
Department of Management, University of Turin, Turin, Italy, and
Amandeep Dhir
Department of Management, School of Business and Law, University of Agder,
Kristiansand, Norway; Norwegian School of Hotel Management,
University of Agder, Kristiansand, Norway, and
Optentia Research Focus Area, North-West University, Vanderbijlpark, South Africa

Abstract
Purpose – Entrepreneurship in the rural hospitality and tourism sector (RHT) has received wide attention
in the past decade. However, a systematic review on this topic is currently lacking. This study aims to track
the progress of the RHT and entrepreneurship literature by examining the various thematic research areas,
identifying the research gaps and forecasting avenues of future research on the topic.
Design/methodology/approach – This paper catalogs and synthesizes the body of literature from the
year 2000–2020 using a systematic literature review methodology. After discussing a brief history of RHT
and entrepreneurship, the current study presents a review of 101 research articles.
Findings – The review highlights that RHT and entrepreneurship have received relatively limited attention from
entrepreneurship journals. The content analysis revealed different gaps and limitations in the understanding of
entrepreneurship in RHT, including a predominance of qualitative studies with limited theoretically-grounded and
generalizable empirical studies. Furthermore, a high concentration of studies is from European countries. Six main
thematic research areas were identified, namely, barriers and enablers, the roles of an entrepreneur, women in RHT,
influencers of firm performance, innovation and value creation and methodological commonalities. The review also
advances an RHT entrepreneurship ecosystem framework to summarize the findings.
Originality/value – Six promising research avenues are outlined based on the six themes identified. The
suggested research questions draw from allied literature on small and medium businesses, innovation,
International Journal of
women entrepreneurship and institutions to encourage the interdisciplinary cross-pollination of ideas. The Contemporary Hospitality
findings are summarized in a novel research framework. Management
Vol. 33 No. 8, 2021
pp. 2521-2558
Keywords Gender, Systematic literature review, Entrepreneurship, Rural hospitality and tourism © Emerald Publishing Limited
0959-6119
Paper type Literature review DOI 10.1108/IJCHM-09-2020-1121
IJCHM 1. Introduction
33,8 Scholars have recently shown considerable interest in issues pertaining to the rural hospitality
and tourism sector (RHT) (Doh et al., 2017; Kubickova and Campbell, 2020; Yachin, 2019). RHT as
a movement gained momentum in the 1970s, though its origins can be traced back to the
nineteenth century (Kaptan Ayhan et al., 2020). RHT grew from the desire of urban dwellers to
escape the hustle and stress of city life and experience a calmer rural environment (OECD, 1994).
2522 Since then, this sector has hosted tourists in rural areas, with hospitality and other tourism
services emerging as a leading contributor to the wealth and development of rural areas (Richard
Sharpley, 2002). For example, in 2017 alone, RHT contributed an estimated $16.2bn in the UK and
was responsible for 14% of employment in rural areas (UK G. of, 2019). The academic interest in
RHT is also evident from the well-received review literature (Lane and Kastenholz, 2015;
Streimikiene and Bilan, 2015), which has mainly focused on issues relating to the definition of
RHT (Lane, 1994), the tracking of its evolution (Lane and Kastenholz, 2015) and the
summarization of different theories used in the prior literature (Streimikiene and Bilan, 2015).
However, there is a lack of systematic literature review (SLR) studies that summarize the role of
entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship in RHT.
The role of entrepreneurship is vital to ensuring the sustained development of RHT.
Several countries have policy initiatives in place to encourage RHT entrepreneurship
(Bosworth and Farrell, 2011). For example, the “Swadesh Darshan” initiative of the Indian
Government has a separate policy head to develop RHT circuits (Tourism, M. of, 2017). On
the academic front, the extensive literature on RHT and entrepreneurship has examined
various research avenues, including entrepreneur-related issues (Hernandez-Maestro et al.,
2009; Nieto et al., 2011) and community-related issues (Peng and Lin, 2016; Situmorang et al.,
2019), etc. Considering the growing body of literature and policy interest, the time is right to
consolidate and examine the existing body of research to develop a future research agenda
on RHT and entrepreneurship.
Despite the growing interest, there is a dearth of a dedicated review on issues of
entrepreneurship in the RHT domain. The current study aims to contribute to the growing body
of literature by presenting a review of RHT with an emphasis on entrepreneurs and
entrepreneurship. The current study is dedicated to understanding how RHT entrepreneurship
emerged in the preceding decades. By doing so, we seek to understand the research landscape
and identify the common themes explored in the extant literature. The analysis of these common
themes will expose the issues requiring greater attention, and thus, can help grow the area
further. We hope that the increased clarity of how RHT entrepreneurship works will enable better
business and policy decision-making in addition to driving increased research interest.
Therefore, the current review is guided by six main research questions (RQs):

RQ1. What is the research profile of the studies examining entrepreneurship issues in
RHT?
RQ2. What are the different enablers and barriers of RHT entrepreneurship
development?
RQ3. What is the nature and behavior of entrepreneurs who run an RHT firm?
RQ4. What factors impact an RHT enterprise’s performance?
RQ5. What are the different ways RHT entrepreneurship generates and delivers value
to tourists?
RQ6. What are the various limitations in the existing research and what RQs can be
drawn from them?
To this end, we follow the time-tested SLR method to identify and classify the studies Rural
published in this emerging area. The review covers literature from the years 2000 to 2020. We hospitality and
used the Scopus and Web of Science (WOS) databases in this search to present a detailed
quantitative research profile and qualitative content analysis to arrive at common research
tourism
themes from the 101 selected studies. The content analysis suggests six major research
themes that have been investigated in the chosen literature. The analysis also indicates that
RHT and entrepreneurship as an area is dominated by qualitative case studies with a limited
focus on generalizable and theoretically grounded empirical works. The review shows that 2523
the contribution of entrepreneurship journals to the advancement of RHT entrepreneurship
has been limited as well. Furthermore, the study identifies the different gaps and limitations
from the prior literature and presents six promising research avenues for future research. To
do so, we borrow from existing theories from small and medium enterprises (SMEs), women
entrepreneurship and technological change to encourage cross-area research. The findings
are then summarized in an RHT entrepreneurship ecosystem framework.
The article is structured as follows. Section 2 presents a brief historical overview of RHT
entrepreneurship as both a research area and the scope of the review. Specifically, the
section covers the sparse literature from before the year 2000. Section 3 proceeds to the
review of the field, where we cover the research from the years 2000–2020. After a brief
discussion of the SLR methodology used and the selection of the research studies, we
present the research profile and the results of the qualitative content analysis. Section 4
discusses various limitations and gaps in the extant literature to advance future research
direction. We end with a discussion of the research framework, implications and conclusion
in Sections 5–7.

2. Background and scope of the review

2.1 Entrepreneurship in rural hospitality and tourism: a brief history
Butler et al. (1992) noted that the studies on RHT entrepreneurship were primarily case study-
based with very little contribution to the theoretical understanding of RHT as a phenomenon.
Unfortunately, the observations of our review show that this trend continues even today,
particularly in the entrepreneur- or supply-side of RHT. Very few research articles were
published on the issue prior to the year 2000. Manual reverse citations led to some key works
prior to the year 2000 that have significantly impacted how the area has evolved.
Lane and Kastenholz (2015) observed that the growth of RHT accelerated in the 1990s
when rural dwellers started observing declining farm incomes, which encouraged them to
adopt farm diversification into other activities. One of these diversifications was their foray
into RHT as they quickly realized that it was financially viable. Furthermore, strong and
well-organized policy interventions for developing RHT were very much active at the time,
including the Polish National Strategy for Rural Tourism Development (Augustyn, 1998),
Romanian RHT development policy aimed at increasing employment (Turnock, 1999) and
Italy’s youth entrepreneurship program (Tyson et al., 1994), etc. (Bramwell, 1991 for a
detailed review of all RHT policy initiatives in Europe). These policy interventions enabled
better community-based tourism and provided the resources and funding required to
develop RHT in the 1980s and 1990s, which put RHT entrepreneurs at the forefront of RHT
development. However, despite the interest in RHT and entrepreneurship at the time, the
impact of entrepreneurship journals on the development of RHT and entrepreneurship
research during this period was minimal.
To better understand this impact or lack thereof, we listed the top journals in
entrepreneurship and searched them with the keywords “rural tourism and hospitality,”
“rural tourism,” “farm tourism” and “entrepreneurship.” Only entrepreneurship journals
IJCHM ranking “A” or “A*” in the Australian Business Deans Council list and “3,” “4” and “4*” in
33,8 the Chartered Charted Association of Business Schools (ABS) ranking were included in the
search. The selected journals included, Journal of Small Business Management,
International Small Business Journal, Small Business Economics, Entrepreneurship and
Regional Development and Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice. The search revealed that
hardly any of the popular entrepreneurship journals commented on RHT entrepreneurship.
2524 However, several studies discussed rural development policies (Hailey, 1986; Tyson et al.,
1994) and tourism firms (Jackson et al., 1979). However, studies focused on RHT
entrepreneurs and how they set up and operate RHT businesses were missing. Some works
that made a notable attempt to address the changing nature of the farms can be seen in
Entrepreneurship and Regional Development. These have noted that farmers gradually
turned into entrepreneurs by diversifying into tourist ventures (Carter, 1996, 1998; Spilling,
1996).
The majority of the RHT literature at the time also came from books and book chapters.
Page and Getz (1997), in their book comprising of case studies from around the world,
observed that the understanding of RHT at the time was mainly from the demand (tourist)
side, with little attention paid to supply-side (entrepreneurship) issues, including setting up
and operating RHT businesses. Although the book was criticized for being non-
representative in their sample, it was still hailed as a landmark work with the potential to
accelerate RHT and entrepreneurship research (Bull, 1998). Some other notable books and
reviews of the time with similar observations include the ones by Fennell and Weaver (1997)
and Weaver and Fennell (1997). They demonstrated in a Canadian setting that research on
demand-side was limited regardless of the context. However, as will be seen, the current
literature still focuses heavily on European countries, with the exceptions of the USA and
China. Therefore, it is now pertinent to look at what happened at the turn of the millennia to
RHT and entrepreneurship research. Have these trends persisted? Have any of the concerns
been partially or completely addressed? What has RHT and entrepreneurship become
today?

2.2 Scope of the review

An entrepreneur may be defined as a person who is risk-taking and demonstrates
creative thinking and initiative (Hisrich and Vecsenyi, 1990) to create value from a
perceived opportunity (Bolton and Thompson, 2004). They act as sources of creative
destruction in their ecosystem by disrupting the status quo (Schumpeter, 1934).
Entrepreneurship, meanwhile, may be defined as a “social phenomenon that emerges
within the context of a broader society and involves many actors” (Lundstrom and
Stevenson, 2006, p. 44). Entrepreneurship in rural areas has been of great research
interest in the past decade (Pato and Teixeira, 2016). Diversification away from or in
addition to farm-based activities is one of the ways in which farmers create additional
value for themselves (Barbieri, 2013; Su, 2011; Sutherland et al., 2017). What, then,
counts as RHT? However, before defining this construct, it is necessary to understand
the rurality of a region. Rurality for an area implies an area with extensive land use
through agriculture or forestry, small low order settlement and where people lead a
life that is strongly intertwined with the environmental and behavioral quality of the
landscape (Cloke et al., 2006). As an extension, RHT is essentially the
commodification or packaging of what constitutes rurality for tourist consumption.
This constitutes participating and experiencing local cultures and practices of rural
areas (Sharpley and Sharpley, 1997; Richard Sharpley, 2002). However, subscribing to
such an inclusive definition means that the review also included agro-tourism and
farm-based tourism in the study’s scope as agro-tourism allows tourists to experience Rural
the rural farming environment (Phillip et al., 2010). Furthermore, farm diversification hospitality and
into RHT activities implies that farmers are increasingly becoming entrepreneurial
(Vik and Mcelwee, 2011; Phelan and Sharpley, 2011), thus justifying their inclusion in
tourism
a review on RHT and entrepreneurship. However, this entrepreneurial process can be
both necessity-driven or voluntary. Necessity-driven motivation occurs mainly from
the desire of rural stakeholders to hedge their risk from farming activities (Lane and
Kastenholz, 2015). At the same time, another set of entrepreneurs are motivated by the
2525
desire for an enhanced lifestyle for their families (Cunha et al., 2020; van Rooij and
Margaryan, 2019).
In this study, an RHT entrepreneur is defined as a risk-taking person who is engaged in
value creation for tourists based on the rurality of a region. The extant literature has listed a
variety of such endeavors, including accommodation (Vallone and Veglio, 2019; Yuan et al.,
2018), transportation and sightseeing (Chiodo et al., 2019), etc. Furthermore, as an extension,
RHT entrepreneurship can be defined as the social systems in place that rural entrepreneurs
use to carry out their entrepreneurial activities. This review captures all instances of
entrepreneurial activities happening in the RHT setting regardless of the RHT service or
product provided to the tourists. Table 1 provides the definitions of the different terms used
in the study below.

3. Methodology
This study used a time-tested systematic review process to collect research articles and
thematically analyze them (Tranfield et al., 2003). The systemic review enables a structured,
comprehensive and reproducible review, which is sometimes difficult to accomplish in a
traditional narrative review (Jin and Wang, 2016; Altinay and Taheri, 2019). The current
SLR used a two-step process. First, the keywords were identified using a multi-stage

Rurality Rurality for an area is described Entrepreneur An entrepreneur may be defined

as an area with extensive land as a person who is risk-taking
use through agriculture or (Drucker, 1970) and demonstrates
forestry, small low order creative thinking and initiative
settlement and where people lead (Hisrich and Vecsenyi, 1990) to
a life that is strongly intertwined create value from a perceived
with the environmental and opportunity (Bolton and
behavioral quality of living with Thompson, 2004)
the landscape (Cloke et al., 2006)
Rural hospitality RHT is essentially the Entrepreneurship Entrepreneurship may be defined
and tourism commodification or packaging of as a “social phenomenon that
(RHT) what constitutes rurality for emerges within the context of a
tourist consumption. This broader society and involves
constitutes participating and many actors” (Lundstrom and
experiencing local cultures and Stevenson, 2006, p. 44)
practices of rural areas (Sharpley
and Sharpley, 1997; Richard
Sharpley, 2002)
RHT An RHT entrepreneur may be defined as a risk-taking person who is engaged in creative
entrepreneur value creation for tourists from the rurality of rural region
RHT RHT entrepreneurship can be defined as the social systems currently in place or that Table 1.
entrepreneurship evolve, which rural entrepreneurs use to carry out their entrepreneurial activities Important definitions
IJCHM approach. Second, robust keywords were used to identify relevant literature on RHT and
33,8 entrepreneurship.

3.1 Keywords
First, a search for keywords was performed on the Google Scholar database to identify the
types of articles available in the literature. The keywords used were “rural hospitality,”
2526 “rural tourism” and “entrepreneur.” The articles were screened by reading the titles and
abstracts of the first 100 most relevant articles suggested by the platform. The keywords of
these 100 articles were then examined, and the initial keyword set was thus, expanded to
include “entrepreneurship” and “new venture.”
The new set of keywords was reviewed by six experts (two professors, three
researchers and an industry expert from RHT) specializing in the tourism and
entrepreneurship area. Their suggestions expanded the entrepreneurship side of
keywords to include “small firm,” “SME,” “small and medium*,” “self-employ,” “small
tourism,” “small hospitality” and “small community,” owing to the observation that
RHT entrepreneurship usually consists of SMEs. The experts also noted that RHT
overlaps with agro- and (agri)-tourism and Albergo Diffuso research. Albergo Diffuso
is a community enterprising initiative started in Italy wherein traditional and historic
buildings are adapted into authentic hospitality arrangements (Presenza et al., 2019).
The final set of keywords for the next step were, “rural hospitality,” “rural tourism,”
“farm tourism,” “agro-tourism,” “farm diversification,” “Albergo Diffuso,” “small-
community,” “small tourism,” “small hospitality,” “self-employ,” “entrepreneur*,” “new
venture,” “small firm” and “SME.”

3.2 Identification and screening

We searched the selected keywords in two databases, namely, Scopus and WOS. These
databases extensively cover hospitality and tourism-based journals and are often used
in literature reviews in this area (de la Hoz-Correa et al., 2018). The search covered the
time frame between the years 2000 to 2020 (November 2020). The results were merged,
resulting in 696 articles. After the elimination of duplicates, there were a total of 519
articles. To ensure the review’s quality, articles in languages other than English,
conference proceedings, editorials and reviews were removed. Then, filtering was
performed for relevance based on the articles’ titles and abstracts. This step yielded 183
viable articles. The studies were individually assessed for inclusion based on the
presence of the concept of RHT and entrepreneurship. Only research articles that
directly addressed entrepreneurship and RHT in their content were retained.
Furthermore, the studies that addressed farm diversification without discussing
diversification into RHT were removed. Figure 1 gives the complete list of inclusion
criteria and presents the methodology followed in searching and filtering the articles.
Ultimately, 101 full papers were included in the study for further descriptive and
thematic analysis. The final sample was analyzed both qualitatively and
quantitatively.

3.3 Analysis of the selected studies

Two levels of analysis were performed with the selected studies. First, metadata from the
studies were captured to compute and present the research profile. To do so, we captured five
key details from each of the research articles including, the source of the article, prominent
authors, the year of publication, the geographical scope and the methods used. We used this
information to present the research profile of the study, as discussed in Section 3.4, and to
 Rural
hospitality and
tourism

2527

Figure 1.
Systematic literature
review process

provide an overview of the publication landscape of the area. Furthermore, to extract

common research themes, we carried out a qualitative content analysis and theme
identification.

3.4 Research profile

Regarding the source of the studies, the research articles came from over 50 peer-reviewed
journals. The most prominent outlet for RHT and entrepreneurship-related research was
“tourism management,” with 10 published studies. Table 2 presents a summary of the top
journals for the publication of RHT and entrepreneurship research. All journals with a
minimum of two studies have been listed in the table.

Journal name Number of studies

Tourism Management 10
International Journal of Tourism Research 8
Journal of Sustainable Tourism 7
Tourism Planning and Development 6
Rural Society 5
Journal of Travel Research 3
Scandinavian Journal of Hospitality And Tourism 3
Sustainability 3
Asia Pacific Journal of Tourism Research 2
International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management 2 Table 2.
Entrepreneurship and Regional Development 2 Top publication
Journal of Rural Studies 2
outlets for
Journal of China Tourism Research 2
Annals of Tourism Research 2 hospitality, tourism
Land Use Policy 2 and
Local Economy 2 entrepreneurship-
South European Society and Politics 2 related studies
IJCHM Figure 2 shows the distribution of studies across the years. The trend of studies is
33,8 positively increasing, indicating that this is a growing area of research. Regarding the
geographical distribution, Figure 3 represents the frequency of studies from the most
studied countries. As observed from the graph, the most popular countries studied were
Sweden (11), China (11) and the USA (10). To better gauge the region of the studies, we
also present a continent-wise analysis of the studies. As seen in Figure 4, about half of
2528 the studies originated from Europe, with 50 studies. Furthermore, five studies used a
multi-country approach.
Figure 5 represents a summary of the methodology used in the included studies.
Research in RHT has primarily been qualitative in nature. Among the 68 qualitative
studies, 28 were case studies, 1 was action research, 1 used a phenomenology method, 4
were descriptive studies and the rest were a combination of the case- and descriptive-
based studies. In addition, most of the studies were mostly inspired by phenomena and
only rarely by theory. Among the quantitative studies, meanwhile, structural equation
modeling (10), multivariate regression (6) and multivariate analysis of variance (2) were
the most popular methods of analysis.

Figure 2.
Distribution of
studies across the
years

Figure 3.
Top countries studied
 Rural
hospitality and
tourism

2529

Figure 4.
Number of studies by
continent studied

Figure 5.
Overview of
methodology

4. The current state of rural hospitality and tourism and entrepreneurship

We conducted a qualitative content analysis and theme identification to extract common
research themes. The authors read the selected pool of articles independently before
performing the open and axial coding of the content (Stanfill et al., 2010). Emphasis was
placed on identifying the themes that appeared in multiple studies. Atlas.ti software was
used to manage the coding process (Friese et al., 2018) as it simplifies the entire process of
theme extraction by enabling the easy cataloging and coding of qualitative data. This step
yielded six prominent research themes in the area, which the expert group approved. These
IJCHM themes included, namely, barriers and enablers of RHT, entrepreneurship development and
33,8 operation, types and roles of RHT entrepreneurs, women in RHT, influencers of RHT firm’s
performance, innovation and value creation in RHT enterprises and methodological
commonalities.

4.1 Barriers and enablers

2530 RHT enterprises are most often SMEs. As such, their inception, operations and survival, like
most SMEs, are heavily reliant on several internal and external factors, such as limited
resources and capabilities (Cui et al., 2016), financial constraints (Ayyagari et al., 2011) and a
constrained institutional environment (Barasa et al., 2017). The prior literature has
suggested that enterprises engaged in RHT also experience different enablers and barriers
in their inception and operation. Among these studies, there are four major classes of
enablers and barriers in the literature. These are:
 Institution-level enablers.
 Demand-side barriers.
 Entrepreneur and entrepreneurial climate-related barriers.
 Miscellaneous.

4.1.1 Institution-level enablers. Institutional and governmental support plays a significant

role in the functioning of SMEs (Barasa et al., 2017; MacKenzie and Gannon, 2019). This is
also true for RHT enterprises. Studies have noted that policy support for RHT development
is now part of several countries’ hospitality and tourism development strategies because of
its positive economic impact on the local community (Kubickova and Campbell, 2020;
Richard Sharpley, 2002; Situmorang et al., 2019). Furthermore, the public-private
partnership has also been a significant avenue of value creation for the RHT enterprises and
community (Marcouiller and Westeren, 2019). Prior studies have observed that governments
have made and continue to make an active effort in supporting RHT enterprises by
providing support and resources such as training (Hernandez-Maestro et al., 2009; Wang
and Man, 2019), finance, consulting (Situmorang et al., 2019) and marketing (Kubickova and
Campbell, 2020).
4.1.2 Demand-side barriers. The tourist side, that is, the demand side of the hospitality
and tourism equation has a significant impact on how RHT enterprises function (Ikonen,
2016; Marcouiller and Westeren, 2019). The chief objective of RHT is the commodification of
tourist destinations, used here to refer to the packaging of rural experiences for tourist
consumption. However, a variety of tourist expectations of RHT can make this
commodification difficult to accomplish (Cucari et al., 2019). For example, Kordel’s (2016)
study of German agro-tourism firms showed that farms’ attempts to serve the rurality of the
region were challenged by tourists’ idiosyncratic expectations of what it meant to be in a
village. This led to customer dissatisfaction as they did not feel that the experience was
authentic. Indeed, rural tourists seek an authentic rural experience that will not only be
enjoyable but will also widen their knowledge horizons. This authenticity is, thus, a
significant factor in determining tourist visits (Di Domenico and Miller, 2012). Seasonality in
demand is another significant issue for RHT enterprises, particularly for organizations such
as summer farms, which are open for only two to three months a year (Rytkönen and Tunon,
2020). In addition, a lack of awareness about the concept of RHT is another prominent
challenge (Cucari et al., 2019). Finally, demand-side challenges are exacerbated by a lack of
entrepreneurial skills and training, which hinders RHT entrepreneurs’ ability to deliver the
value that tourists expect (Reichel et al., 2000).
 4.1.3 Entrepreneur and entrepreneurial climate-related barriers. Several studies using Rural
case studies and entrepreneur interviews have similarly concluded that a lack of hospitality and
entrepreneurial skills impedes RHT development (Canovi, 2019; Reichel et al., 2000; Richard
tourism
Sharpley, 2002). A study on RHT enterprises found that entrepreneurs in the UK lacked
marketing and financial management skills (Phelan and Sharpley, 2012), a deficit that has
likewise been identified in agro-tourism farming entrepreneurs (Phelan and Sharpley, 2011).
Similarly, scholars have observed that this lack of capable entrepreneurs can be attributed 2531
to a lack of entrepreneurial spirit and culture among RHT entrepreneurs (Eimermann, 2016;
Lordkipanidze et al., 2005; Schmitz and Lekane Tsobgou, 2016). However, it is important to
recognize that although lack of skill is a concern, it does not dissuade entrepreneurial
individuals from starting businesses. For instance, a sense of belonging and the perceived
impact of RHT entrepreneurship on rural society can motivate farmers to become
entrepreneurs despite a lack of relevant skills (Li et al., 2020).
4.1.4 Miscellaneous. Other enablers of RHT entrepreneurship include local support
(Ateljevic, 2009; Qu et al., 2020), the social capital of the entrepreneur (Khazami et al.,
2020; Ngoasong and Kimbu, 2016), family support (Ainley, 2014; Kallmuenzer et al.,
2018), inheritance (Barbieri, 2013), effective networking (Lovelock et al., 2010; Schmitz
and Lekane Tsobgou, 2016; Shen et al., 2019; Truong, 2020), built capital or shared
infrastructure (Kline et al., 2019), strong visionary leader entrepreneurs (Moscardo,
2014), entrepreneurial and spatial bricolage (Yachin and Ioannides, 2020), an education
level (Haugen and Jostein, 2008), business flexibility (Li et al., 2018), farm resource
slack (Kristensen et al., 2019; McGehee and Kim, 2004) and technologies such as the
internet (Andreopoulou et al., 2017; van der Merwe et al., 2013). Furthermore, the ego-
networks of entrepreneurs and resource providers can also act as enablers or barriers
(Yachin, 2020). However, these factors have not been adequately addressed in the
existing literature. Similarly, other barriers to RHT include high development costs,
low returns on investment (Rytkönen and Tunon, 2020), the dominance of larger
tourist players, lack of institutional support (Richard Sharpley, 2002), resistance to
change from agriculture (Yoshida et al., 2020s) and a lack of networking (Mattsson and
Cassel, 2020).

4.2 Types and roles of a rural hospitality and tourism entrepreneur

The prior literature has stressed the different types and roles of RHT entrepreneurs. Unlike
most other entrepreneurs, the RHT entrepreneur has a socially embedded role. They play an
active role in the development of their rural destination (Peng and Lin, 2016). In their study
of entrepreneurs from The Netherlands, Brooker and Joppe (2014) classified entrepreneurs
into three types, namely, imitative, liminal and visionary. Liminal and visionary
entrepreneurs are known to engage in exploitative innovation. Specifically, liminal
entrepreneurs are less unpredictable and try to encourage imitators to reduce risk in their
innovations, while visionary entrepreneurs often take risky decisions that are difficult to
imitate. Imitators create standards by replicating innovations and business models put forth
by liminal entrepreneurs.
Moscardo (2014), meanwhile, classified entrepreneurs based on their role in community-
building activities. This typology included:
 “Not leaders” who played no role in rural development.
 “Catalysts” who helped bring about change in the society.
 “Community leaders” who initiated changes and helped develop their society.
IJCHM Moscardo (2014) further classified entrepreneurs based on the stages of their firms and their
33,8 impact on the community. Entrepreneurs who ran smaller businesses were not capable of
bringing about change, and thus, could not act as leaders. Entrepreneurs running medium-
growing businesses acted as catalysts of change, while community leaders often already
operated a successful RHT business and planned to enter more businesses through their
visionary leadership, thereby bringing growth and prosperity to the rural region. Ferrari
2532 et al. (2010) presented another classification, wherein entrepreneurs were divided into
“environmentally conscious,” “ecopreneurs” and “environment reactive” based on their
orientation to environmental sustainability.
Scholars have also studied RHT entrepreneurs as social entrepreneurs who
simultaneously pursue both profit and social goals with their firm (Thompson, 2002).
Furthermore, an RHT firm has a significant economic impact on a rural area through
employment and opportunity generation (Clark, 2009). For example, Mottiar et al. (2018), in
their study of RHT entrepreneurs from Ireland, South Africa and the USA, suggested that
RHT entrepreneurs behave as social entrepreneurs by fulfilling three roles in their
community, namely, as an opportunist, network architect and visionary. Operating in these
roles, entrepreneurs find opportunities and create the networks required to develop these
opportunities into viable businesses. In a similar study from China, Shen et al. (2019) studied
the life cycle of a social tourism firm using a four-stage model consisting of the
entrepreneurial, collective, standardization and refinement stages. However, they showed in
their model that entrepreneur characteristics only impact entrepreneurial stage. The firms
thus, become less flexible in later stages, and they are led more by standard processes than
entrepreneurial spirit. Considering that these studies focused on different countries, the
appropriate mode to bring about social change through RHT may be context-specific. Social
entrepreneurship has also been linked to the positive firm performance of RHT enterprises,
as driven by the entrepreneurs’ transformational leadership style, in particular (Naderi et al.,
2019). Furthermore, Kimbu and Ngoasong (2016), studying the African context of
Cameroon, found that women acted as vectors for social entrepreneurship and helped
develop their local communities. It would, thus, be interesting to see if social entrepreneurial
tendencies in RHT is also guided by gender and other demographic variables.
Another way that entrepreneurs have been classified is based on their motivation to
become entrepreneurs. One key category is RHT entrepreneurs as lifestyle entrepreneurs
(Bosworth and Farrell, 2011; Cunha et al., 2020). Lifestyle motivations to become
entrepreneurs stem from an entrepreneur’s desire for a certain quality of living and their
desire to enhance both their personal and family’s “status” (Cunha et al., 2020). In addition,
these entrepreneurs may also be from within the village or may have migrated into the
village from another area in search of a better life (Bosworth and Farrell, 2011; van Rooij and
Margaryan, 2019).

4.3 Women entrepreneurship in rural hospitality and tourism

Some of the studies have highlighted issues pertaining to the role of women in RHT
development. Indeed, women’s participation in RHT is typically riddled with obstacles
(Möller, 2012; Ali, 2018). Their performance as entrepreneurs is reliant on their gender roles
as tasks around the firm are usually divided accordingly (Savage et al., 2020). This
observation is consistent with the extensive literature on gender and entrepreneurship,
which also suggests that women deal with legitimacy and capability concerns if they try to
become entrepreneurs (Fischer et al., 1993). However, scholars have also argued that all
women do not respond similarly to these challenges. Koutsou et al. (2009), for example,
studied Greek women entrepreneurs engaged in agro-tourism and found that those who
were less educated, risk-averse and older tended to opt for a cooperative ownership model to Rural
distribute their risks. In comparison, younger, educated women were more risk-taking and hospitality and
opted for private business ownership structures. The results thus, underscored the role of
age and education as additional factors that determine women RHT entrepreneurs’
tourism
behavior.
Scholars have further highlighted the significant presence of co-preneurship (i.e. a
husband-wife pair as an entrepreneurial team) that can add to the discussion on gender and
RHT (de Bruin and Lewis, 2004). Even when women became entrepreneurs in a co- 2533
preneurial pair, they were often expected to stick to their general stereotypical roles
(Lovelock et al., 2010). Men entrepreneurs, for example, managed the physical and outdoor
works, while the women performed their stereotypical “women” work such as cooking
(Bensemann and Hall, 2010). However, sometimes this expectation to stick to gender roles
can help women enter the RHT landscape. For example, when farms are diversified, women
often take care of the accommodation and hospitality on the farm (Pettersson and Heldt
Cassel, 2014). This cannot be considered entirely harmful for rural women, as women are
often not allowed to be part of the economic system (Lagarde and Solberg, 2018). RHT, thus
gives them an opportunity to engage in and earn from the economic activities of their co-
founded enterprise. Furthermore, participation in RHT has enabled women to get out of
poverty (Xu et al., 2018). These results are more or less consistent in the regions covered by
the study, including Latvia (Möller, 2012), Greece (Koutsou et al., 2009) and Sweden
(Pettersson and Heldt Cassel, 2014). However, the majority of the studies in the sample were
from European countries, which may be non-representative of women around the world.
However, recently, the issue of women RHT entrepreneurship in Africa has started receiving
interest (Ali, 2018; Kimbu and Ngoasong, 2016), presenting a promising research avenue.
This participation by women is also important from an economic and global perspective as
gender equality is one of the United Nations’ sustainable development goals (United
Nations, 2019), and African countries are one of the primary regions of interest. Moreover,
entrepreneurship is one of the most effective ways to bring women to the forefront of
economic participation (Duflo, 2012). More attention, however, is also needed on RHT
women entrepreneurs in Asian countries such as India and Pakistan, which have received
limited attention despite hosting about 16% of the world’s population of women and being
70% agrarian.

4.4 Influencers of firm performance

Firm performance is often conceptualized as both financial, including total sales, sales
growth and profit (Barbieri and Mshenga, 2008; Kallmuenzer and Peters, 2018; Nieto et al.,
2011; Polo-Peña et al., 2012) and non-financial, including different scale-based measures
(Naderi et al., 2019; Park et al., 2014). The factors that influence performance can thus, be
classified at the entrepreneur-level, firm-level and as other factors.
4.4.1 Entrepreneur-level antecedents. The entrepreneur orientation (EO) model is one of
the most popular in the entrepreneurship literature (Covin and Slevin, 1989). According to
this model, an entrepreneur’s orientation is based on three parameters, namely, innovation,
risk-taking and proactiveness. The role of entrepreneurial orientation is paramount in
hospitality firms, particularly in turbulent markets (Taheri et al., 2019). RHT research
investigating the role of entrepreneur characteristics on firm performance has wholly or
partially used this model. For example, Kallmuenzer and Peters (2018), in their study of rural
family firms, used the complete model and found that innovativeness and proactiveness had
a positive relationship with firm performance. Furthermore, they showed that firm size
negatively moderated the relationship between proactiveness and firm performance. In a
IJCHM similar study using the entrepreneurial talent model (innovation, search for information and
33,8 uncertainty), Nieto et al. (2011) observed that entrepreneurial talent positively impacted firm
performance among experienced entrepreneurs only.
Naderi et al. (2019) followed an RHT entrepreneur using a transformational leadership
approach and argued that transformational leaders spurred learning and growth, and thus,
positively influenced RHT firm performance. Barbieri and Mshenga (2008), in their study of
2534 agri-tourism firms in the USA, reported that entrepreneurial characteristics such as age,
gender, role duality, education and network capability also influenced firm performance.
Furthermore, age, being a woman and being a non-white race negatively influenced annual
gross income, while education, networking ability and role duality (farmer-entrepreneur)
had a positive impact on firm performance. However, their results are in conflict with Park
et al. (2014) and Liang and Bao (2018), who reported that business skills, such as marketing
and product/process development, influenced firm performance, whereas networking,
planning and human resource management skills showed no impact.
4.4.2 Firm-level antecedents. Among the firm-level antecedents, the number of firm
employees, firm age and acres of land owned (for agro-tourism firms) has had a significant
impact on firm performance (Barbieri and Mshenga, 2008). Furthermore, firm size, as
observed earlier, has played a moderating role in entrepreneur proactiveness and firm
performance (Kallmuenzer and Peters, 2018). Innovation has also had a positive impact on
firm performance (Park et al., 2014; Liang and Bao, 2018; Roman et al., 2020), while the
marketing practices of information gathering, differentiation of offering, staff training and
customer service have positively impacted firm financial, entrepreneur financial and
community outcomes (Polo-Peña et al., 2012).
4.4.3 Other factors. Other factors that influence firm performance have included
community support (Hallak et al., 2013) and government support, the autonomy of the firm
and the social relationship of the entrepreneur (Liang and Bao, 2018). The factors that did
not influence firm performance, meanwhile, have been identified as the distance from an
urban area, finance from external and internal sources (Barbieri et al., 2009), entrepreneur
human resource management, cost reduction skills (Park et al., 2014), entrepreneurs’ web
development skills and company website design (Nieto et al., 2011). In summary, scholars
have indicated that it is essential for rural entrepreneurs to be highly rated in EO
(Kallmuenzer and Peters, 2018; Nieto et al., 2011), have an education, and be good at
networking to have a competitive edge in their firms’ performance. However, being a woman
and being a person of color may negatively influence firm performance (Park et al., 2014).
Furthermore, firm age, size and asset ownership had a positive impact (Barbieri and
Mshenga, 2008). Conflicting results from different countries and types of firms, however,
indicate that the entrepreneurial antecedents of RHT firm performance may be country-
specific and dependent on the RHT firm type.

4.5 Innovation and value creation

Innovation is an essential process for RHT enterprises. As previously discussed, the
innovativeness of the entrepreneur and their creativity influence firm performance (Park
et al., 2014). Furthermore, RHT enterprises’ innovation also has an impact on community
development (Visentin and Vallerani, 2018). Accordingly, several studies have dealt with the
process of value creation in RHT enterprises.
4.5.1 Role of networks and ecosystems in innovation. Some studies have argued that the
value of RHT for tourists lies in creating an ecosystem of services or events that provide a
variety of experiences (Marques and Cunha, 2013; Qu et al., 2020). RHT entrepreneurs see
beyond their individual gains to envision the development of the local rural area as an
important motivator of value creation (Mottiar, 2016). As such, networks play a major role Rural
(Komppula, 2014; Schmidt et al., 2016; Hsu et al., 2013) as this new value creation may come hospitality and
from the constant interaction between actors in a variety of networks, including
entrepreneur-entrepreneur (Che et al., 2005; Komppula, 2014; Schmidt et al., 2016; Qu et al.,
tourism
2020), entrepreneur-tourist (Hsu et al., 2013; Liang, 2017; Yachin, 2019), entrepreneur-
research organizations (Visentin and Vallerani, 2018) and entrepreneur-policymaker
networks (Marcouiller and Westeren, 2019). In a new line of research, Schmitz and Lekane
Tsobgou (2016) adopted an action research method approach and showed how research on 2535
value creation could be a co-evolving process wherein the researcher and the entrepreneurs
develop new products ideas together. Some studies have also argued that adopting a service-
dominant logic approach (Vargo and Lusch, 2004) can enable firms to better co-create values
with their tourists (Hsu et al., 2013; Liang, 2017).
Immigrant entrepreneurs have also contributed to innovation by both engaging in
networking and creating innovation networks (Carson and Carson, 2018; Iversen and
Jacobsen, 2016; Xiong et al., 2020). However, although this networking was within the local
community, it was strongest with stakeholders from their home country because of the
limited levels of trust between the local people and immigrant entrepreneurs. This was
likewise observed by Mattsson and Cassel (2020) in Sweden and in the case of organizational
innovation by in-migrant Chinese creative city entrepreneurs by Xiong et al. (2020).
However, migrant entrepreneurs can also crowd out the local competition. Zuidam and
Roessingh (2018), in their study of entrepreneurs from Nicaragua, showed that the
reluctance of locals to diversify to tourism led to migrants monopolizing the local industry
and causing friction with local entrepreneurs. Given that this was a novel line of inquiry, it
still requires further inspection. Furthermore, why migrants enter a rural area has also been
underexplored, with only one of the studies identifying migrant motivations, such as
housing, employment, cost of living and access to the city (Vuin et al., 2016). However, that
study was in the Australian context and similarly requires additional investigation in other
regions.
One popular form of ecosystem that had multiple mentions in the review was rural Italy’s
“Albergo Diffuso” model (Cucari et al., 2019; Fissi et al., 2020). Albergo Diffuso is a type of
accommodation business model that encourages people to visit and experience rural village
areas rather than popular tourist attractions (Paniccia and Leoni, 2019). The tourists often
stay in farmhouses to gain a “homely” living experience. Moreover, entrepreneurs customize
the value delivered to Albergo Diffuso tourists, thus building an ecosystem and contributing
to rural and destination development (Fissi et al., 2020). However, it is important to note that
the Albergo Diffuso model draws heavily from the rural authenticity and identity of a
particular rural area. As such, only motivated entrepreneurs from that area can effectively
engage in the model (Cucari et al., 2019). This may be good for the community, as it erects
invisible barriers to entry that discourage imitators and ensure firms’ survival. The extant
literature has also covered a similar model of authentic farmhouse accommodations in China
called “Nong-Jia le” (Su, 2011, 2013). These models are generally supported by policy and
enable locals to earn some extra income (Su, 2011). Considering the various stages of
development and the cultural origins of Albergo Diffuso and Nong-Jia le, it would be
interesting to see comparative studies about the origins and evolution of these systems,
which were not found in our sample.
4.5.2 Role of entrepreneurial characteristics in innovation. A major influencer of new
value creation is entrepreneur skills and capability. The previous sections highlighted the
importance of networking skills for an entrepreneur to introduce innovations (Truong, 2020)
and the locational advantage enjoyed by a local entrepreneur because of tourists’
IJCHM perceptions of authenticity (Schilar and Keskitalo, 2018; Fusté-Forné and Mundet i Cerdan,
33,8 2020). This can be argued from the perspective of the resource-based view, which says that
firms can gain a competitive advantage by possessing unique resources (Barney, 1991;
Campbell and Kubickova, 2020). In addition to these skills, an entrepreneur’s education level
also plays an important role in new value creation. In a study of Vietnamese entrepreneurs,
for example, Trinh et al. (2020) showed that education helps an entrepreneur in two ways.
2536 First, it enables them to identify hospitality and tourism values in rural traditions. Second, it
enables them to develop new hospitality and tourism products for consumption.
In contrast to the body of literature that says local entrepreneurs gain locational
authenticity, a body of literature has argued that immigrant entrepreneurs are sources of
new value creation in RHT entrepreneurship as well. For example, a study from Sweden
found that lifestyle entrepreneurs, that is, affluent immigrants who have moved to a rural
area, have set up and run successful RHT firms (Carson and Carson, 2018). The study
discovered that immigrants bring new ideas, external networks and skills that contribute
significantly to product and process innovations. Furthermore, these immigrant
entrepreneurs also find new opportunities that their local counterparts are unable to
identify. These results concurred with Mattsson and Cassel (2020), who also studied
immigrant RHT entrepreneurs in Sweden. They similarly argued that strategies adopted
by immigrant entrepreneurs are responsible for new product and market development and
that immigrant entrepreneurs have a network effect whereby they attract foreign tourists to
the area.
4.5.3 Miscellaneous factors influencing value creation. Innovation can also come through
supply chain dynamics, firm vision and reaction to circumstances (Yachin, 2019). Rurality
and rural authenticity further play a significant role in RHT value creation and delivery. For
instance, Kordel (2016) showed that entrepreneurs use traditional building materials to
signal authenticity and satisfy customers’ value expectations from the RHT experience.
Table 3 presents a summary of all themes and the studies addressing them in the review.

4.6 Methodological commonalities and publication trends

From a methodological perspective, we identified two main trends needing immediate
attention:
(1) the methodological design adopted in the study and
(2) the geographical scope of the study.

4.6.1 Methodological design. In our research profile, we noted that 67% of the studies in the
review used a qualitative methodological approach, of which the majority used case study
methods. Case study-based research is often criticized for issues of reliability, validity and
generalizability (Hamel et al., 1993). This is important to address, as generalizable results are
often required to construct useful policy interventions. The limited number of quantitative
empirical works can, perhaps, be attributed to the RQs examined and the uniqueness of each
context in which RHT develops. Therefore, it is important to identify questions that can
effectively be studied with quantitative methods. To achieve this, some form of
classifications must be achieved to carry out such studies. For example, studies that classify
entrepreneurs based on their role in community building (Ferrari et al., 2010) can pave the
way for developing new scales and studies that examine the impact of entrepreneur types on
RHT development. Furthermore, the existing quantitative studies have used a cross-
sectional design, which leaves limited scope for causality-based studies. This limitation has
also been noted by some of the studies in our sample (van Rooij and Margaryan, 2019). Due
to the nature of the rural areas and research participants, it may be difficult to obtain reliable
Enablers and Institution-level enablersSharpley (2002), Situmorang et al. (2019), Shen et al.
Rural
barriers (2019), Schmitz and Lekane Tsobgou (2016), Kubickova hospitality and
and Campbell (2020), Doh et al. (2017), Marcouiller and tourism
Westeren (2019), Liang and Bao (2018), Wang and Man
(2019), Ngoasong and Kimbu (2016)
Demand-side barriers to RHT Cucari et al. (2019), Marcouiller and Westeren (2019),
Reichel et al. (2000), Hsu et al. (2013), Fissi et al. (2020),
Di Domenico and Miller (2012), Ikonen (2016), 2537
Rytkönen and Tunon (2020)
Entrepreneur and Sharpley (2002), Reichel et al. (2000), Schmitz and
entrepreneurial climate- Lekane Tsobgou (2016), Eimermann (2016), Phelan and
related barriers Sharpley (2012), Canovi (2019), Lordkipanidze et al.
(2005), Phelan and Sharpley (2011), Cunha et al. (2020),
Ateljevic (2009), Li et al. (2020)
Other enablers and barriers Andreopoulou et al. (2017), Kline et al. (2019), Lovelock
et al. (2010), van der Merwe et al. (2013), Moscardo
(2014), Schmitz and Lekane Tsobgou (2016), Shen et al.
(2019), Tillberg Mattsson and Cassel (2020), Ainley
(2014), Barbieri (2013), Haugen and Jostein (2008),
Kristensen et al. (2019), McGehee and Kim (2004),
Yoshida et al. (2020), Khazami et al. (2020), Rytkönen
and Tunon (2020), Truong (2020)
Types and roles of Types and roles Brooker and Joppe (2014), Moscardo (2014), Ferrari
an RHT et al. (2010), Cunha et al. (2020), van Rooij and
entrepreneur Margaryan (2019), Bosworth and Farrell (2011)
Social entrepreneurs Shen et al. (2019), Peng and Lin (2016), Naderi et al.
(2019), Thomas Lane et al. (2016), Mottiar et al. (2018),
Kimbu and Ngoasong (2016)
Women in RHT Co-preneurship Bensemann and Hall (2010), Lovelock et al. (2010)
Gender role constraints Möller (2012), Koutsou et al. (2009), Pettersson and
Heldt Cassel (2014), McGehee et al. (2007), Ali (2018),
Savage et al. (2020)
Others Xu et al. (2018), McGehee et al. (2007), Savage et al.
(2020), Kimbu and Ngoasong (2016), Halim et al. (2020)
Firm performance Entrepreneur-level Kallmuenzer and Peters (2018), Naderi et al. (2019),
antecedents Nieto et al. (2011), Park et al. (2014), Barbieri and
Mshenga (2008), Liang and Bao (2018), Xiong et al.
(2020)
Firm-level antecedents Kallmuenzer and Peters (2018), Barbieri and Mshenga
(2008), Polo-Peña et al. (2012), Liang and Bao (2018),
Roman et al. (2020)
Other Nieto et al. (2011), Liang and Bao (2018)
Innovation and Ecosystems and networks Mottiar (2016), Komppula (2014), Marques and Cunha
value creation (2013), Yachin (2019), Visentin and Vallerani (2018),
Cucari et al. (2019), Fissi et al. (2020), Paniccia and
Leoni (2019), Carson and Carson (2018) Mattsson and
Cassel (2020), Hsu et al. (2013), Che et al. (2005) Schmidt
et al. (2016), Campbell and Kubickova (2020), Hsu et al.
(2013), Qu et al. (2020)
Entrepreneur-related Trinh et al. (2020), Carson and Carson (2018), Mattsson Table 3.
and Cassel (2020), Iversen and Jacobsen (2016) Zuidam Summary of
and Roessingh (2018), Xiong et al. (2020) emerging research
Other Schmitz and Lekane Tsobgou (2016), Kordel (2016) areas
IJCHM longitudinal data, and new methods of data collection may need to be innovated.
33,8 Particularly, increasing rural internet connectivity worldwide may be of interest in
collecting data.
4.6.2 The geographical scope of the study. The studies were localized at the country level,
with the majority focusing on Europe. This is understandable, considering that European
countries were among the first to introduce comprehensive rural development policies to
2538 encourage RHT. Although this has led to a prolific understanding of RHT enterprises and
entrepreneurial behavior in European countries such as Sweden, the same level of
understanding in other regions, such as Asia and South America, has been limited.
However, the recent trend of studies, particularly in the past decade (2010–2020), has shown
a small yet fast-growing body of literature from Asian, Australian and African countries.
This has been enabled by policy interventions to encourage RHT in China, for example (Gao
et al., 2019). Growth has thus, been particularly strong in China with 11 studies, creating a tie
for the top country context studied with Sweden.
Furthermore, studies from the African sub-continent have been picking up steam, with
six studies originating from Africa. Five of these studies were published from, 2015 onwards
and tackled diverse issues, such as women RHT entrepreneurship (Ali, 2018; Kimbu and
Ngoasong, 2016), financing (Ngoasong and Kimbu, 2016) and entrepreneurial identity in
agri-tourism (Khazami et al., 2020). This is a promising development that requires further
attention in the future. Considering the impact that RHT has on the economic development
and well-being of rural areas (Naidoo and Sharpley, 2016; Tew and Barbieri, 2012), more
studies are, thus, needed in emerging market countries such as India, Bangladesh and
Pakistan, where the economy is primarily agrarian and underemployment is rampant
(Lerche, 2013). The excess labor in farms and rural areas can, therefore, be put to productive
use by identifying and implementing RHT initiatives as RHT can significantly improve
farmer income (Tew and Barbieri, 2012).
It would also be interesting to see whether the current results hold in a new geographical
context. Businesses, especially smaller firms, are impacted significantly by the culture and
institutional environment of a country or region (Ayyagari et al., 2011; Farmaki et al., 2020).
Furthermore, culture can also impact some entrepreneur groups differently than others. For
example, existing studies on women entrepreneurs have shown that the way that women
perform as entrepreneurs are significantly impacted by a country’s culture and institutional
environment (T. M., Joseph and Ul Akram, 2019). Future researchers may also consider
conducting comparative and multi-country studies as such studies are currently rare (Calza
et al., 2018; Moscardo, 2014).
4.6.3 Publication trends. It is interesting to note that only one entrepreneurship journal
was present in the list of top contributors, Entrepreneurship and Regional Development.
Moreover, there was only one other entrepreneurship journal in the list of contributors.
Entrepreneurship journals may not yet have recognized the importance of this research area.
Thus, cross-area research will need to be encouraged to properly integrate the two areas of
study, RHT and entrepreneurship. The most productive author was Carla Barbieri, with five
research articles, followed by Richard Sharpley, with four research articles published
addressing the issue. However, Sharpley’s impact on research on RHT has been immense,
considering his definition of rural tourism and rurality is the most cited definition in the
literature and has also been adopted for this review.

5. Gaps and avenues of future research

Interest in RHT entrepreneurship continues to grow and has gained traction in the past few
years. Unlike in the 1990s, the supply-side of RHT has received significant attention recently
and addresses a wide variety of issues related to entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship. This Rural
is indeed great news for scholars hoping to enter this area of research. However, the analysis hospitality and
of the selected studies revealed several gaps in our understanding of how RHT
entrepreneurs and RHT entrepreneurship function. Addressing these limitations will set the
tourism
tone for future progress in the area.
First, many of the limitations observed in research prior to the year 2000 are still present.
Particularly, it is important to note the lack of theoretically grounded and generalizable
empirical works. Such works are often required to formulate policy interventions. 2539
Furthermore, although the literature has made significant progress, the issues of weak
theoretical grounding, pointed out by Butler et al. (1992), still persist. Thus, the review draws
from overlapping areas of literature wherever relevant to suggest theoretical grounding for
the RQs proposed. One observation worth mentioning is that the current literature
recognizes entrepreneurs of different natures, including women, immigrants, farmers and
others, compared with studies looking only at farm-related RHT in the 1990s (Carter, 1998).
Furthermore, the current research also actively distinguishes between necessity-driven
entrepreneurship and entrepreneurship through lifestyle choices. We have classified the
gaps and limitations according to the themes drawn from the qualitative analysis. That is,
the gaps are based on:
 Enablers and barriers to RHT.
 Types and roles of RHT entrepreneurs.
 Women in RHT.
 Innovation and value creation.
 Influencers of firm performance.
 Methodological considerations.

Table 4 presents a summary of the research gaps, the corresponding RQs and the theoretical
underpinnings that may be used to address them. The list of RQs advanced is not
exhaustive and has been suggested based on the gaps extracted. Some RQs may have
already been addressed in the extant literature; however, they are still interesting to explore
based on the context of the study, and thus, have been included.

6. Discussion and conclusions

The purpose of this review was to find and catalog the extant literature on entrepreneurship
in RHT. Tranfield et al. (2003) noted that results consolidated from multiple studies were
bound to be more comprehensive and valid than those from a single source. We were guided
by a series of RQs in this journey, the findings of which we summarize in this section. To do
so, we have developed an RHT entrepreneurial ecosystem framework that is modeled with
reference to the entrepreneurial ecosystem framework (Roundy et al., 2018) and the
antecedents-outcome framework (Kotlar et al., 2018). The entrepreneurial ecosystem may be
defined as “the sets of actors, institutions, social networks and cultural values that produce
and sustain entrepreneurial activity” (Roundy et al., 2018, p. 1). We, thus, represented
the relationship between different ecosystem components by studying them as either
antecedents or consequences of entrepreneurial processes.
The framework consists of five main blocks, namely:
(1) entrepreneur and entrepreneurship characteristics,
(2) outcomes of entrepreneurship,
(3) enablers and
IJCHM Gaps and avenues
33,8
Avenue 1: enablers and
barriers of RHT
Institutional barriers have not as the rule of law, corruption
received adequate attention
Demand-side uncertainties
2540 need more attention
Rural authenticity in the eyes
of the tourist is a significant
issue that needs attention
The influence of a lack of
entrepreneurial spirit on RHT
is not adequately known
Avenue 2: Types and roles of RQ1. What are the
RHT entrepreneurs
Recent literature has
expressed interest in the social RHT social entrepreneur?
entrepreneurship role of RHT RQ2. How do they contribute
entrepreneurs. Furthermore,
women as social
entrepreneurs have been
explored. However, other
demographic variables need
further attention
It is also unclear what values different from in-village
drive a social entrepreneur
The role played by lifestyle
Table 4. entrepreneurs has received
Summary of research significant attention in
gaps and research previous years. However, a
questions
Suggested research questions
RQ1. What is the role of
institutional parameters such
and regulatory environment
on RHT entrepreneurship?
RQ2. What is the role of
information credibility on the
RHT tourist’s perception of a
rural region and its RHT
enterprise?
RQ3. How is the information
received from an RHT
enterprise website different
from the information received
from a review website?
RQ4. What is the role of
tourist characteristics in the
relationship between the
perception of a rural area
through websites and
intention to visit?
RQ5. What is the antecedent
to lack of entrepreneurial
spirit to set up and operate an
RHT enterprise?
RQ6. What initiatives should
be put in place to develop
entrepreneurial climate, and
thus, entrepreneurial spirit in
RHT?
RQ7. What is the role of
entrepreneurship training
programs in RHT
entrepreneurship and how do
they perform?
demographic antecedents to
an entrepreneur becoming an
to community well-being
factors?
RQ3. What is the typology of
lifestyle entrepreneurs?
RQ4. How are in-migrant
lifestyle entrepreneurs
lifestyle entrepreneurs?
RQ5. Are they guided by
different lifestyle aspirations?
Theoretical perspectives References
Richard Sharpley (2002),
Institution theory (North, Situmorang et al. (2019), Shen
1991) et al. (2019)
Regional institutions
(Ayyagari et al., 2011)
Technology adoption Andreopoulou et al. (2017),
models (Venkatesh et al., van der Merwe et al. (2013),
2003), (Venkatesh et al., Eimermann (2016),
2003), (Venkatesh et al., Lordkipanidze et al. (2005),
2003) Schmitz and Lekane Tsobgou
Entrepreneurial (2016)
orientation (Covin and
Slevin, 1989)
Managerial capability
(Helfat and Peteraf, 2015)
Richard Sharpley (2002),
Reichel et al. (2000), Schmitz
and Lekane Tsobgou (2016),
Eimermann (2016), Phelan
and Sharpley (2012), Canovi
(2019), Lordkipanidze et al.
(2005)
Cunha et al. (2020), Bosworth
Lifestyle and Farrell (2011), van Rooij
entrepreneurship in and Margaryan (2019)
tourism (Ateljevic and
Doorne, 2000)
Social entrepreneurship
(Shaw and Carter, 2007)
(continued)
Gaps and avenues Suggested research questions Theoretical perspectives References
Rural
hospitality and
comparison between different tourism
lifestyle motivations needs
further examination
Avenue 3: Women in RHT RQ1. What are the Möller (2012), Koutsou et al.
The role of women motivations of a women Liberal feminist theory (2009), Pettersson and Heldt
entrepreneurs in RHT entrepreneur operating an (Fischer et al., 1993) Cassel (2014), McGehee et al. 2541
development needs more RHT enterprise? Social feminist theory (2007)
attention RQ2. How does a woman- Social identity theory
controlled RHT firm function
It is unclear what factors are (Tajfel and Turner, 2004)
responsible for women’s entrycompared with a man- Resource dependence
into RHT entrepreneurship controlled firm or a firm with theory (Pfeffer and
Results from different parts of
mixed founding teams? Salancik, 1978)
the world indicate that RQ3. What gender stereotype Managerial capability
country culture can play a role
can women exploit to innovate (Helfat and Peteraf, 2015)
in deciding women in RHT firms? Culture and subculture
entrepreneurship RQ4. How are women theories (Dheer et al.,
In light of gender entrepreneurs in farm-based 2015).
poststructuralist feminism, entrepreneurship different Post-structuralism
the role of masculine and that women in non-farm feminism (Alcoff, 1988)
feminine traits rather than based-entrepreneurship? Postmodern feminism
gender can be explored as RQ5. How do women in co- (Sands and Nuccio, 1992)
antecedents to preneurial teams compare
entrepreneurship with women in non-co-
The literature has suggested preneurial teams?
that gender roles dictate RQ6: What is the role of Koutsou et al. (2009), Kato
entrepreneurial roles in RHT.culture in women’s RHT (2019)
Postmodern feminism can entrepreneurship?
guide research to understand RQ7. What is the
how women can operate entrepreneurial characteristic
of women that influences firm
outside these roles if they so
desire performance?
RQ8. Do different women set
different goals for their
entrepreneurial firm?
RQ9. What is the role of
various post-structural
identities in entrepreneurial
outcomes?
RQ10. How can women break
out of their traditional gender
roles to become full-time RHT
entrepreneurs?
Avenue 4: Influencers of firms RQ1. What is the role of social Nieto et al. (2011), Park et al.
performance media engagement and The resource-based view (2014),
The role of technological marketing on the firm (Barney, 1991) Kallmuenzer and Peters
factors such as internet performance of RHT firms? Diversity theories (Miller (2018)
adoption requires more RQ2. What is the role of other et al., 1998)
attention social classes, such as the Locational advantage
Though the role of website caste of the entrepreneur, on a (Figueiredo et al., 2002)
design and content have been firm’s performance?
studied on firm performance, RQ3. What is the role of
more studies are needed to
(continued) Table 4.
IJCHM Gaps and avenues
33,8
investigate the role of digital
and social media marketing
on firm performance
The gender and race of the
entrepreneur have been
2542 explored as being negative
influencers of performance.
Roles of other such social
classification need attention
Further attention is also
needed as to how to mitigate
the abovementioned negative
influence
The current studies have not
adequately addressed the role
of natural resource
endowments on firm
performance
Avenue 5: Innovation and
value creation in RHT firms
Studies using service-
dominant logic require a
further examination at the
tourist- and business-levels
The RHT literature on the role
of immigrant entrepreneurs
has not received adequate
attention
Value creation in RHT
through technology adoption
is understudied
The role of ecosystem models,
such as Albergo Diffuso,
needs a keener look
The role of migrant
entrepreneurs requires further
inspection
Table 4.
Suggested research questions
locational resource advantage
in deciding firm performance?
RQ1. What is the role of
relationship quality between
the tourist and the enterprise
in this relationship?
RQ2. What are the factors that
an entrepreneur needs to
consider to ensure
participation for co-creation
from a tourist?
RQ3. Are immigrant
entrepreneurs motivated by
personal characteristics or
place characteristics?
RQ4. What role can local
policy play in attracting
immigrant entrepreneurs?
RQ5. How can networks with
local participants be
facilitated?
RQ6. Is the relationship
different in other countries?
Does it change based on the
type of immigrant (e.g.
affluent, refugee or non-
affluent)?
RQ7. What are the existing
technologies that can be used
to create or enhance values
delivered to tourists?
RQ8. What are the barriers to
the use of these technologies?
RQ9. How can RHT
entrepreneurs deliver value to
tourists through AR/VR
Theoretical perspectives References
Hsu et al. (2013), Liang (2017)
Service-dominant logic
(Vargo and Lusch, 2004)
Learning theories (Cohen
and Levinthal, 1989)
Absorptive capacity
(Cohen and Levinthal,
1990)
Institution theory (North,
1991) Carson and Carson (2018),
Social identity theory Tillberg Mattsson and Cassel
(Tajfel and Turner, 2004) (2020)
Social network theory
(Barnes, 1954)
Organizational change
theories (Kritsonis, 2005)
Cognitive diversity
(Miller et al., 1998)
Loureiro et al. (2020);
Andreopoulou et al. (2017),
van der Merwe et al. (2013)
(continued)
Gaps and avenues Suggested research questions Theoretical perspectives References
Rural
hospitality and
technology? tourism
RQ10. What are user
immersion, pleasure, utility
and the satisfaction of
engaging in AR/VR RHT?
RQ11. What is the role of the 2543
entrepreneur in the change to
AR/VR?
RQ12. What are the factors Mottiar (2016), Komppula
needed to brand a particular (2014), Marques and Cunha
ecosystem such as Albergo (2013), Yachin (2019), Visentin
Diffuso? and Vallerani (2018), Cucari
RQ13. How can such systems et al. (2019), Fissi et al. (2020),
such as Albergo Diffuso be Paniccia and Leoni (2019),
implemented in other regions? Carson and Carson (2018),
RQ14. What is the impact of Mattsson and Cassel (2020),
ecosystems on the Hsu et al. (2013), Su (2013),
development of rural areas? Zuidam and Roessingh (2018)
RQ15. How does the
conceptualization and
implementation of Albergo
Diffuso compare with other
such systems like its Chinese
counterpart “Nong jia le?”
Avenue 6: Gaps related to RQ1. How can opportunities Calza et al. (2018; Moscardo
methodological considerations for RHT entrepreneurship in Institution theory North (2014), Richard Sharpley
Avenue 6.1: Geographical other regions be identified? (1991) (2002), Situmorang et al.
scope of the study RQ2. Are the processes National culture (2019), Shen et al. (2019),
There are not enough studies involved different from those Hofstede and Hofstede Schmitz and Lekane Tsobgou
from non-European countries, identified in the existing (2005) (2016) Kubickova and
leading to an incomplete literature? Regional subculture Campbell (2020), Doh et al.
understanding of RHT and RQ3. What can developed Dheer et al. (2015) (2017), Marcouiller and
entrepreneurship processes countries learn from RHT Westeren (2019), Chen (2017),
Research is steadily growing entrepreneurs in developing Kimbu and Ngoasong (2016),
in other regions, particularly countries and vice versa? Ngoasong and Kimbu (2016)
in African countries, which RQ4. What is RHT
need more studies to explicate entrepreneurship’s impact on
RHT entrepreneurship and its social issues such as
role in the community (Chen, underemployment and
2017; Kimbu and Ngoasong, unemployment in rural areas
2016) of developing countries?
Emerging market countries RQ5. Are existing theoretical
and primarily rural countries explanations sufficient to
require more attention understand RHT
entrepreneurship in
developing countries?
RQ6. What is the role of
national and regional
institutions and cultures in the
functioning of RHT
entrepreneurship?
RQ7. What is the role of local
(continued) Table 4.
IJCHM Gaps and avenues
33,8
2544 Avenue 6.2: The methodology
used
There are not enough
empirical studies with
sufficient enough theoretical
grounding
Not enough studies with
generalizable studies
Table 4.
Suggested research questions Theoretical perspectives References
social classifications, such as
gender, race and social strata
of the entrepreneur, in the
functioning of RHT
enterprise?
RQ1. Can villages be classified – Brooker and Joppe (2014),
based on their enabling or Moscardo (2014)
disabling of RHT growth?
RQ2. What are the different
types of tourists who engage
in RHT?
RQ3. Are existing qualitative
results generalizable, and if so,
then to what extent? What are
the generalizable factors we
can draw? What roles of
various moderating and
mediating variables make
these parameters behave
differently in different
contexts?

(4) barriers, which are embedded in

(5) the contextual factors block.

The different blocks and the relationship between them can be seen in Figure 6 below.
At this juncture, we believe it would be apt to revisit our RQs and answer them
synthetically from our review. RQ1 was dedicated to explicating the research profile of the
area. We believe Section 3.4 adequately discusses the same and delves into methodological
consideration in Section 3.3.6. To summarize, our results revealed that the contribution of
entrepreneurship journals in the growing area of RHT entrepreneurship had been limited.
Furthermore, the research in this area is primarily single case or single context case studies,
phenomenon-led and uses limited theoretical underpinnings. The research further needs
more quantitative and comparative location studies, particularly from non-European
countries, to support the emerging literature and RHT initiatives from Asian and African
countries.
RQ2 asked what the different enablers and barriers of RHT entrepreneurship were.
Section 4.1 discussed in detail the various enablers and barriers, which indicated that RHT
organizations are very delicate, and RHT entrepreneurship often develops haphazardly
(Iorio and Corsale, 2010). The lack of an entrepreneurial climate in rural areas also implies
that few RHT enterprises are created. Furthermore, those that are created tend to struggle
with limited entrepreneurial skills and support. RHT enterprises also need constant
institutional and other network support to sustain themselves, which further hinders their
ability to succeed. In addition, the demand-side uncertainties worsen the RHT
entrepreneurs’ lack of skills and support. Individual tourism expectations of what
constitutes RHT services are another concern that such entrepreneurs are unable to address.
Maintaining and communicating rural authenticity thus, demands further attention on the
part of entrepreneurs and scholars. Future researchers may use the RQs advanced in
 Rural
hospitality and
tourism

2545

Figure 6.
RHT
entrepreneurship
ecosystem
framework

Avenue 3 to chart their own research projects to further understand the role of the various
enablers and barriers.
Coming to RQ3, we wanted to investigate the various roles played by entrepreneurs and
entrepreneurship in their region. The analysis of the literature showed that entrepreneurs
act as agents of change (Schumpeter, 1934) in more than just an economical manner. They
help lead positive rural community-level and firm-level changes that usually have far-
reaching positive outcomes for both the firm and the rural region. The details of these
findings are highlighted in Section 4.2 and in the entrepreneurial roles block in the
framework. Furthermore, we also delved into the roles played by women RHT
entrepreneurs and how they can form co-preneurial pairs with their spouses. However, the
role of women needs further attention, as women are largely restricted by their gender role
stereotypes in their entrepreneurial journeys. RHT enterprises are responsible for a variety
of outcomes for their regions and help create new value propositions for tourists to enjoy. As
such, they not only improve their own lifestyle status but also contribute significantly to
their firms’ performances and community well-being through employment and tourist foot
traffic.
We also uncovered various factors that led to the performance of RHT enterprises, as
discussed in Section 4.4. We observed that RHT enterprise performance was not only
influenced by entrepreneur characteristics but also by different firm-level characteristics
such as firm size and marketing practices. This finding enables us to argue that decisions to
enhance firm performance are actually in the control of the RHT enterprise but require good
management practices, as guided by the entrepreneur. However, we saw that firm
performance was mainly measured through financial outcomes such as sales and profit. We
believe that with more rural areas adopting tourism, the development and use of competitive
performance indices need to be addressed further. We propose the theoretical lenses of
strategic management to guide these questions in understanding how RHT enterprises
IJCHM (rural destinations) can gain a competitive advantage over other local enterprises
33,8 (destinations).
Regarding RQ5, we asked what are the different ways in which RHT entrepreneurs and
enterprises generate new value. This was a particularly interesting question to explore, with
the discussion of the extant findings given in Section 4.5. Our review concluded that value
creation in RHT happens in several ways, including through external knowledge brought in
2546 by migrant entrepreneurs (Mattsson and Cassel, 2020). Another important mechanism that
we explored and which we argued requires more attention is a model such as Albergo
Diffuso, which makes use of intelligent destination branding. Although several similar
systems are currently emerging in other parts, such as Nong-Jia le from China (Su, 2013),
comparative studies are still lacking and require greater attention. This lack of
comprehensive business models opens new opportunities for business models, including
farm-based accommodations (Paniccia and Leoni, 2019).
With respect to RQ6, which sought to uncover research gaps in the current literature, we
highlighted these gaps in Section 4 and suggested a few RQs based on them. We observed
that entrepreneurship in RHT is a complex phenomenon that can cut across multiple
theoretical perspectives, covering the areas of entrepreneurship, innovation and strategic
management. The RQs we advanced in Section 5 is a call to examine new questions and re-
examine some old ones using new theoretical lenses and contextual environments.
This review was our sincere attempt to introduce these perspectives into the RHT
literature. By doing so, we seek to be boundary spanners for this area. Breslin and Gatrell
(2020), in their research article on reviews, argued that a literature review may be one of two
types:
(1) A miner, which tries to consolidate the knowledge within the area.
(2) A prospector that tries to expand the area with new thoughts and knowledge.

Our review is a prospector by nature, and thus, contributes by introducing new theoretical
perspectives to address the research gaps, as explicated through the content analysis.

7. Study implications
7.1 Theoretical implications
The present review makes several contributions to the hospitality and tourism literature.
Our review is one of the few reviews of the RHT literature, particularly regarding RHT and
entrepreneurship. In doing so, we add to the knowledge base summarized by the existing
reviews on RHT (Lane, 1994; Lane and Kastenholz, 2015; Streimikiene and Bilan, 2015). Our
review is also timely, considering the growing trend of literature on RHT and
entrepreneurship. Although the role of entrepreneurs and entrepreneurial firms has been
extensively discussed in the literature, a comprehensive summarization of the same has
been lacking. However, the main novelty of this review lies in its focus on the
entrepreneurship aspect of RHT development in cultivating entrepreneurship in the RHT
ecosystem framework. By doing so, the framework synthesizes the extant literature and
highlights the various components and relationships therein. However, each of the proposed
avenues and questions requires multiple theoretical perspectives from a variety of research
domains to address them, thereby encouraging an interdisciplinary approach. We, thus, act
as boundary spanners for the RHT literature and call on researchers in other domains,
particularly in entrepreneurship, to look at RHT entrepreneurship as a potential research
area.
Next, our review exposes a persistent weakness in how this area is developing. The
current review shows that many of the limitations in the current literature were also present
in the 1990s – for instance, the majority of the studies taking place in Europe. However, we Rural
also show that these issues are in decline with more research works now appearing from hospitality and
Asian and African countries, which are fertile research contexts to explore for both existing tourism
and future researchers.
We also summarize the most prominent research outlets for publications and the
methodological limitations of the area. These results may be used by future researchers to
identify suitable outlets and methodological designs. Quantitative researchers may also use 2547
this opportunity to contribute to the area by performing studies that transcend the village
context to contribute to policy decisions. However, reliable scales will need to be developed
to accomplish this, presenting another significant research opportunity.

7.2 Practical implications

The study also presents implications for all stakeholders relating to RHT entrepreneurship.
First, the review highlights the importance of institutional support for RHT development, as
discussed extensively in the literature (Kubickova and Campbell, 2020; Marcouiller and
Westeren, 2019; Richard Sharpley, 2002; Situmorang et al., 2019). The summary of
institutional parameters can, thus be used by policymakers to design better institutional
support programs for RHT entrepreneurs. Furthermore, a lack of research on the evaluation
of such policy issues should concern policymakers. This may be addressed by policy
sponsored research works to specifically understand the rural environments for which
policies are made. The country or region-specific studies indicate currently provide region-
specific results. Policymakers should consider if they would like to develop region-specific
policies or try to identify commonalities between regions to create a unified policy. We
suggest a mixed approach where policy decisions take into consideration the idiosyncrasies
of the rural regions along with a common overarching national policy. Considering the
importance of networks, such decisions should be made with the extensive participation of
all stakeholders.
Second, the roles of entrepreneurs summarized here may be used by entrepreneurs to
better understand their role in the rural development of their areas. As with local
policymakers and network members, other stakeholders may use this classification to
identify and encourage entrepreneurs of a particular type. Entrepreneurs can also refer to
various value creation mechanisms summarized in the study and adopt appropriate
strategies accordingly. In addition, entrepreneurs can learn from research on other RHT
entrepreneurs in other countries. The concept of hospitality and tourism service ecosystem
creation, particularly by Albergo Diffuso, also holds promise. All network actors
(entrepreneurs, suppliers, policymakers and tourists) can better understand their part in the
value creation network from the developed RHT entrepreneurial ecosystem model.
Third, the review shows that RHT enterprises are prone to several weaknesses, of which
the main one is a lack of entrepreneurial skills. The cure for this deficiency may lie with
several governmental or non-governmental organizations, which may plan interventions to
engage with RHT entrepreneurs and teach them management skills. This stream of thought
may also be interesting to corporate social responsibility (CSR) managers who may use their
CSR spending to encourage such entrepreneurship.
Fourth, the study advances an entrepreneurship ecosystem framework that may be used
by both policymakers and entrepreneurs to better understand the entrepreneurial ecosystem
in their rural areas. Identifying strengths and opportunities can thus, help these RHT
entrepreneurs face their weaknesses and threats.
IJCHM 8. Limitations
33,8 The present review has some limitations. First, to maintain clear boundaries and ensure the
review’s high external validity, some works were intentionally removed. These included
books and book chapters, conference proceedings and other gray literature because of their
non-peer-reviewed nature. Second, research articles not in the English language were also
excluded due to the authors’ language constraints. It is possible that relevant literature
2548 existed in these sources mentioned above.
Furthermore, several avenues for future research arise from this work. First, this review
considered both qualitative and quantitative studies in its analysis. Given that the studies
are overwhelmingly qualitative in nature, a similar review covering only qualitative studies
would contribute to future qualitative analysis in this area. Second, reviews of several
adjacent areas are needed to encourage more interdisciplinary research to improve the
understanding of RHT. Some promising reviews may be on networks and sustainability in
RHT.

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Corresponding author
Amandeep Dhir can be contacted at: amannewgen@gmail.com

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