Carlos Peixeira Marques

The dimensions of rural tourism experience: impacts on arousal, memory, and satisfaction

ABSTRACT Rural tourism is driven by the search for unique and memorable experiences in particular settings, but knowledge on visitors’ experiences in rural destinations is still scarce. This paper analyzes the rural tourism experience of Portuguese tourists who answered an online survey (N = 252). The paper aims at validating, in the rural tourism context, a previously proposed tourist experience scale, and analyzing the relationships between the experience, arousal, memory, and satisfaction. Results reveal that the rural tourism experience dimensions of education and esthetics positively predict rural tourists’ arousal, whereas escapism and esthetics determine memorability. Finally, implications for rural tourism marketing are discussed.

Why do some women micro-entrepreneurs decide to formalise their businesses?

The present study intends to identify the profile of women microentrepreneurs and assess the extent to which their entrepreneurial motivations may be influenced by legal incentives to formalise their businesses and by their capacity to reconcile the demands of family and work. A questionnaire was used to gather data on the individual entrepreneurial initiatives of women in Brazil. We evaluated multiple linear regression models for their explanation of the dimensions involving motivations to formalise business activities and dual roles as workers and homemakers, as well as using cluster analysis to identify the profile of women micro-entrepreneurs. The results suggest that these women opt for legalised individual entrepreneurship to access the benefits offered by the formalisation of their businesses and to search for mechanisms that encourage a work-family balance.

Antecedents of entrepreneurial intentions among students in vocational training programmes

The purpose of this paper is to contribute to research on individual entrepreneurial intention (IEI) by assessing the importance of entrepreneurship education to students in vocational training programmes and using the theory of planned behaviour (TPB) to analyse these students’ entrepreneurial intentions. The family background of the students and their exposure to entrepreneurship subject matter were included as antecedents of TPB components and IEI.,To test the research model, the primary data were collected with questionnaires distributed to students in their last year of vocational training programmes with and without entrepreneurship coursework, in a region of Northern Portugal. The data were analysed using structural equation modelling.,The results show that TPB dimensions substantially contribute to explaining students’ IEI. However, their family background makes only a minor contribution, and exposure to entrepreneurship education has no influence on IEI.,Given these results, the authors propose a broader discussion is needed of the importance of introducing business classes into the curricula of vocational training programmes.,This research’s results show that IEI models need to assign greater importance to variables related to previous exposure to entrepreneurial experiences through direct family members. The findings contribute to a fuller understanding of IEI and the factors that precede the formation of this intention among students in training programmes.

The long road from one-size-fits-all SME promotion to bespoke business start-ups

ABSTRACT This paper reports and reflects on the results of an evaluation of the contribution to local and regional development of the EDP Sustainable Entrepreneurship Award, as applied in the Tua Valley (North East Interior of Portugal). Using semi-structured interview schedules, data was collected from young participants in the programme – both those who had gone on to set up their own businesses and those who had opted not to proceed with their business plan. Municipal support staff – the institutional partners most closely involved in the programme – were also interviewed. Content analysis of interview transcripts suggests that the implementation of the programme delivered greater awareness of self-employment opportunities both to young people and to support staff, which in turn helped to develop local entrepreneurial potential and, ultimately, foster the emergence of sustainable new firms. Thus the programme set in motion a significant process of entrepreneurship and innovation in what is a relatively peripheral territory. Improvements to the monitoring of programme performance will allow new learning processes to evolve so that shifts in the dynamics of the programme’s stakeholder network can be more quickly reflected in operational terms, delivering greater capacity to stimulate business start-ups whose sustainability is based on policy initiatives that are ‘made-to-measure’ with respect to local conditions, extra-local opportunities and global challenges.