Justice and community citizenship behavior for the environment: small tourism business entrepreneurs’ perspectives

Abstract

Small tourism business entrepreneurs (STBEs) are important stakeholders in rural destinations, so that their community citizenship behavior for the environment (CCBE) greatly influences the sustainable development of rural tourism communities. This paper thus focuses on STBEs’ CCBE. Guided by equity theory and social exchange theory, this article examines the impact of perceived justice on CCBE and the mediating roles of place identity and subjective well-being in that process. The survey data was collected from 434 STBEs in rural China. Results indicate that perceived justice positively relates to place identity and subjective well-being. Furthermore, place identity and subjective well-being fully mediate the effect of perceived justice on CCBE. These findings offer a newer understanding of the underlying mechanism between perceived justice and CCBE and offer implications for destination managers to promote sustainable development of rural destinations.

Keywords:

• Perceived justice
• community citizenship behavior for the environment (CCBE)
• small tourism business entrepreneurs (STBEs)
• place identity
• subjective well-being

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

The work was supported by the Natural Science Foundation of Zhejiang Province, China (No. LQ20G020001) and the Cultural Project of Zhejiang Province (No. 21WH70080ZD)