Development and validation of the tourism E-Microentrepreneurial self-efficacy scale

With the emergence of tourism sharing economy platforms like People-First Tourism, Vayable, Airbnb, and Uber, there are now a much greater number of microentrepreneurs engaged in selling products and services directly to tourists. The limited existing literature examining these individuals suggests that they are often inspired by noneconomic motives such as freedom, passion, or lifestyle, rather than the desire to rapidly grow a venture and maximize revenue. Accordingly, given that tourism microentrepreneurs have different goals and business models relative to typical entrepreneurs, this study adapted extant entrepreneurial self-efficacy measures to the context of tourism e-microentrepreneurship to develop the tourism e-microentrepreneurial self-efficacy (TeMSE) scale. Our new 13-item scale provides insights into a unique and burgeoning group of tourism actors, namely measuring their beliefs in their ability to successfully perform the various roles and tasks of microentrepreneurship in the tourism sharing economy.