The Lifestyle Entrepreneur

Hi Everyone!

Welcome to Jackie's online article review presentation regarding Lifestyle Entrepreneurship in the vast tourism industry.

The first article that I chose is titled 'Staying within the Fence': Lifestyle Entrepreneurship by Irena Ateljevic and Stephen Doorne, and it can be found on the TMGT 4150 Moodle site. This article falls under the "Small business owners: characteristics, skills and motivations" section of our course.

You can find my second article posted on Moodle. I apologize for not providing a link, but the online link has since been removed, and I couldn't find another way to insert the companion article into the blog.

Please read through my presentation, which provide an overview of both articles, and then reflect and contribute your thoughts!

Before we start...

What do you think a lifestyle entrepreneur is?

What comes first to you: your lifestyle or work?

Article 1

'Staying within the Fence': Lifestyle Entrepreneurship in Tourism

Irena Ateljevic and Stephen Doorne

Journal of Sustainable Tourism (Vol. 8, No.5, 2000)

The Authors

Irena Ateljevic

Irena is originally from Croatia, and has lived in New Zealand since 1993. She completed her MSc in Economics and marketing Major at the University of Zagreb in Croatia in 1992, with her thesis focusing on tourism imaging in tourist resorts in the former Yugoslavia. She also has her PhD in Geography, which she earned in New Zealand. Her doctorate focused on history of tourism development in Rotorua and how was town was founded, developed and has been sustained by the tourism industry. Irena’s general interests include issues of backpacker travel, tourism entrepreneurship and small business culture, discourse analysis of tourist experiences and tourism representations as constructed and interpreted in the context of various social conditions. A small list of her publications include:

Development of backpacker phenomenon from New Zealand to Fiji: A study of market and industry segmentation
The Modern Nomad - a Transnational Research Project on Backpacker Tourism
Tourism in Golden Bay: Economic Impacts and Resource Use Issues
Tourism Entrepreneurship in South-Eastern Europe: A case study of Croatia

Stephen Doorne

Stephen works for the University of the South Pacific, and is a researcher with academic background in human geography and development studies. He has a long standing interest in international development and developing countries. His human geography and development background evolved to include a study of tourism as an agent of development in both local and global contexts, earning him a MA and PhD. Prior to his academic career, he was a travel writer and photographer, as well as a consultant. His research interests include cultural contexts of tourism entrepreneurship, museum and heritage site management and interpretation, backpacker tourism and peripheral places, and tourism in the aid and development environment. Some of his publications include:

Representing New Zealand: tourism imagery and ideology
Theoretical encounters: a review of backpacker literature
Culture, Economy and Tourism Commodities Social Relations of Production and Consumption
Diseconomies of scale: A study of development constraints in small tourism firms in central New Zealand

Due to the sophistication and specialization in their research, I believe these authors to be very reliable and trustworthy sources.

Summary

The authors, Ateljevic and Doorne recognize the importance of small and medium enterprises, especially in a tourism economy that is demanding of more niche market related services, evolving towards the "tailor-crafted" tourism products and services. In turn, there are issues that arise from this evolving industry, such as the argument that small business culture, the lack of skills, and lifestyle motivations create issues for the SME's and ultimately risk their ability to be successful and survive. Typically, lifestyle entrepreneurs are inclined to reject economic growth, as they are solely interested in the lifestyle motivations, opposed to profit motivations. This article looks at how the lifestyle entrepreneur, even though they are not profit-driven, are critical and beneficial to the industry and community due to their ability to bring forward creative ideas influencing and stimulating product development and innovation.

The lifestyle entrepreneur is defined as an entrepreneur who is more motivated by the lifestyle benefits rather than profits.

Ateljevic and Doorne introduce the idea of the lifestyle entrepreneur and the range of issues they face, as well as the motives to become an entrepreneur, their culture, how they organize the enterprise, and market orientation.

"What we define as acts of 'staying within the fence', i.e. the deliberate rejection of a market ethos...allowing the consumer groups to engage in products articulating corresponding values"

This paper begins by revisiting a range of issues and debates, and then leads to the difficulties of applying an economic approach to the study of tourism entrepreneurship and SME, since the non-economic and lifestyle motivations appeared to be just as important catalysts for business formation.

Theorizing Tourism Entrepreneurship: Traditions and Constraints

This article compares the economic perspective to the socio-political perspective. When looking at an entrepreneur through this 'lifestyle' lens, they are perceived different, holding alternative qualities or characteristics.

The lifestyle entrepreneur qualities and characteristics include:

Risk-taking
Innovation
Creativity
Alertness
Insight

These qualities contribute to the 'lifestyle' essence, of not being profit-drive, and instead creating an opportunity to turn your lifestyle into a career.

Integrating Research Perspectives

The discussion used findings from previous studies that took into consideration a variety of sectors in the industry in New Zealand, as well as being supported by studies of consumer behaviour and market segmentation that were conducted in the same regions. The studies used qualitative methods, including in-depth interviews of owners, managers and employees of small enterprises. Over 150 interviews were conducted over a seven year period. Through the process, the authors observed that lifestyle entrepreneurs have been instrumental in each of the regions examined, affecting both the industry and community. There were common themes over the time period, relating to the structure, context and motivation surrounding entrepreneurship. Specifically, the discussion focused on the perspectives of the underlying values influencing their involvement.

The entrepreneurs core values and motivations (behind becoming an entrepreneur) give insight to their level and desire to be involved in the market, industry, cultural environment, and organization.

Building the Fence: Entrepreneurial Perspectives

Using the example of Black Water Rafting in New Zealand, this company was able to 'build a fence' or a niche within the industry. The entrepreneurial founders of Black Water Rafting were seeking lifestyle opportunities, incorporating the landscape, community, and preferred activities (caving) around which a business could be built. This initial establishment created a market in itself, and more and more duplicate companies began to pop up. Event though entrepreneurs, like the ones of Black Water Rafting, made conscious efforts to maintain their lifestyle attributes of their business by limiting growth, their status of 'real' and authentic experiences gains then higher levels of demand and ultimately long term economic gain.

These experiences are consumed by the tourist, or traveler. The consumers are in search or hedonistic and frivolous experiences in which 'money for value' is compromised by the demand for 'value for money'.

The management style of businesses that fall under the lifestyle entrepreneur category are typically collaborative, and include a dialogue between the employees and consumers, emphasizing a bottom-up management. Interestingly enough, these values can be seen as a direct rejection of a corporate organizational environment which is perceived as hierarchical, highly competitive, and emphasizes top-down management. These examples (related to top-down management) illustrate the polarisation of perceived value positions within which entrepreneurs actively seek to position their lifestyles and businesses.

'Staying within the Fence': Broadening Horizons

The four elements that were briefly introduced at the beginning, detailing the entrepreneurial decision making process include: the market, industry relations, the sociocultural environment and organizational structures.

The Market and Organizational structures: the relationship can be expressed in terms of personal relations concerning interactions between individuals

Culture and Industry: activities are articulated through relationships including industry groups, community groups and wider economic structures.

Socio-environmental: expressed in terms of organizational practice, cultural values, as distinct from tourism-related issues affecting and influencing the market and industry environments

This figure above (found on page 387) represents a dynamic tension between the subjective demand of individuals to enclose their value position within an ideological fence. The focal point of this concept is at the core of the model. This diagram also introduces a further layer of interpretation of each of the axes. Additionally, it should be noted that the values on either side of the fence are not static

The fence, therefore, represents a nexus of simultaneously competing value pressures.

The emphasis is a representative of a clear polarity of values on each side of the fence.

Conclusion

This paper has argued that a growing number of businesses, especially small-firm owners are choosing to 'stay within the fence' in order to preserve both their quality of life in their socio-environmental contexts and their niche market position catering to travellers that are seeking out the same alternative activities, and values.

Given the focus of Shaw and Williams on entrepreneurship in the UK, Ateljevic and Doorne's concept of 'lifestyle entrepreneurship' illustrates the extent to which cultural context is a significant element in the dynamics of small business activity.

Overall, four broad research areas emerge from this discussion:

Unravel the polarisation of conceptualizing entrepreneurship in terms of production and consumption
Activities of travellers, workers, and entrepreneurs stemming from the suggestion in the literature as an underlying sequence to lifestyle entrepreneurship
More understanding is needed of the tensions surrounding business growth and the spatio-economic effects of this entrepreneurial activity in terms of sustaining tourism growth across a range of contexts
Research into the community perspectives

My Thoughts

I particularly like this article, because it brings forward the idea that lifestyle entrepreneurs are often ones to reject economic and business growth opportunities. Interestingly enough, the establishments that aren't profit-driven, are a key element in bringing forward innovative and creative product development that improve the industry as a whole. My second article looks at comparing a entrepreneur to a tourism lifestyle entrepreneur, and the unusual environment they are in.

A lifestyle entrepreneur may have the experience in their respective niche field, but do they always have the skills and knowledge required to operate a enterprise? Is passion and the desire to make your lifestyle a career enough?

Sir Richard Branson is one of the most successful entrepreneurs in the world, and seems to never stop creating opportunities and changing the industry. Check out this video where he gives some simple, yet wise advice:

Article 2

Lifestyle Entrepreneurship: The Unusual Nature of the Tourism Entrepreneur

by Mary Hollick and Patrice Braun

Centre for Regional Innovation & Competitiveness

University of Ballarat, Australia

Summary & Connecting the Dots

This article examines the key characteristics of tourism entrepreneurs, and that some of the common characteristics of tourism entrepreneurs, such as a very low skill base of industry entrance, are a result from the lack of barriers to entry. This article bases its research and assumptions on examples and case studies in Australia. This article focuses on the low entry barrier to starting a business, making it a widely available opportunity, but the Australian entrepreneurs who are profit-driven are typically not skilled and lack the knowledge and ability to operate a business that meets the needs of that niche market. In this case study of Australia, there clearly were no benchmarks or ways of measuring the entrants and their skill base, into the tourism industry.

I chose this article because it discussed the characteristics of tourism entrepreneurs and, because of very low entry barriers, most of the tourism entrepreneurs had a very low skill base, creating a large number of enterprises that offer poor quality service. It then reveals how multiple businesses failure (due to lack of skill) have a negative impact on the destinations image. When relating this article to my first article, I thought about the comparison between a tourism entrepreneur and a lifestyle tourism entrepreneur. The lifestyle entrepreneur possesses the practical, in-field experience and knowledge, and motivations to be successful in the industry, but does not necessarily have the operational skills of running a successful business. On the other hand, a tourism entrepreneur typically has the managerial and leadership skills to operate a business, but is commonly profit-driven and not motivated by lifestyle choices.

It made me think, if a lifestyle entrepreneur gains the skills and knowledge of a mainstream tourism entrepreneur (such as management, financial, human resources, basic operating systems), does that imply that the lifestyle entrepreneur is attempting to better their business model, implying the possibility to make a profit?

Even though a lifestyle entrepreneur is defined as motivated by lifestyle choice instead of economic gain, they still are entering an industry thats' sole purpose is to generate profit. Obviously, they don't want to fail. So where is that fine line between generating enough business to cover the operational costs, and not implementing, or rejecting, certain strategies that are designed to generate a profit?

(Keep in mind, it is argued that lifestyle entrepreneurs reject certain economic and business growth opportunities; they like to stay within the fence they built for themselves).

What Does it Mean to You?

Personally, I think that even though a lifestyle entrepreneur is not profit-driven, they are still an entrepreneur that requires basic operational skills and knowledge of the business model, which is designed to generate profit.

Whats interesting to me, and somewhat ironic in my mind, is how lifestyle entrepreneurs are seen as instrumental to the innovation and development of creative products and services, yet they reject economic and growth opportunities. What do you think? Comment below :)

Your Turn!

After ALL that, I have two questions for you:

Provide an example of a lifestyle entrepreneurial based tourism enterprise, and explain what aspects of it make it lifestyle focused opposed to the mainstream tourism entrepreneur.

Also, I would love to generate some discussion on this topic, so I am asking you:

Why do you think lifestyle entrepreneurs reject economic and growth opportunities?

I would love to hear you thoughts and feedback, so please contribute in the comment section below!

Thank you all very much for your patience, focus and time engaging in my online presentation!

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