B&B accommodation entrepreneurship in rural China: How does embeddedness make a difference?

Bed and breakfast (B&B) accommodation invested by nonlocal entrepreneurs has been gaining increasing attention, but research on how entrepreneurship effectively interacts with the rural context to reach sustainable outcomes is still in dispute. This research explored the social embeddedness and institutional embeddedness of rural B&B entrepreneurship by taking two villages with similar contexts in China as case studies. By comparison, the results revealed that institutional embeddedness is fundamental; otherwise, social embeddedness tends to have a negative impact on entrepreneurship in rural areas and causes social conflicts. Tripartite collaborations involving local government (and its institutions), entrepreneurs and community effectively support rural B&B entrepreneurship, in which local government and its local institutions play pivotal roles in improving the rural entrepreneurship climate. This study unpacks embeddedness in two heterogeneous components and offers further insight into entrepreneur-context interactions. Finally, some suggestions are presented for rural B&B accommodation development.