ENTREPRENEURIAL ADAPTABILITY, DIGITAL ORIENTATION AND SUSTAINABLE COMPETITIVENESS IN COMMUNITY-BASED TOURISM ENTERPRISES: A CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.55197/qjssh.v7si4.1662Keywords:
entrepreneurial adaptability, digital orientation, sustainable competitiveness, community-based tourism, dynamic capabilitiesAbstract
The rapid digitalization of tourism markets and the emergence of community-based tourism (CBT) as a distinct development paradigm have intensified scholarly interest in the determinants of entrepreneurial sustainability within small tourism enterprises. Existing literature has largely concentrated on technical digital competency as the primary driver of performance, while comparatively limited theoretical attention has been devoted to entrepreneurial adaptability and digital orientation as strategic behavioural antecedents of sustainable competitiveness. This paper proposes a conceptual framework that integrates dynamic capabilities theory, entrepreneurial orientation literature, and digital transformation scholarship to examine how entrepreneurial adaptability and digital orientation, individually and in combination, influence sustainable competitiveness in CBT enterprises. The proposed framework departs from conventional technical competency approaches by foregrounding strategic and behavioural entrepreneurial dimensions as the primary architecture of long-term competitive sustainability. Theoretical propositions are advanced for each hypothesized relationship, accompanied by a critical synthesis of contemporary literature published between 2020 and 2026. The paper contributes to the entrepreneurship and sustainable tourism literature by offering a reconstructed behaviour oriented analytical perspective, and provides implications for tourism development policymakers, entrepreneurial support institutions, and future empirical research agendas.
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Copyright (c) 2026 SYAHIDA ABDULLAH, SITI FALINDAH PADLEE, ANDY LIM TEIK HONG, ZALEHA MOHAMAD
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