Leadership, creativity, and recovery from crisis in rural tourism

ABSTRACT

Leadership and crisis are closely intertwined, yet studies of leadership during crisis remain scarce. The 2020 Covid-19 outbreak offers an ideal context to examine leaders’ roles during severe crises. Grounded in the theoretical framework of transformative leadership and based on a study of four cases in rural Ningbo, Zhejiang Province, the study examines rural tourism enterprises’ post-pandemic recovery to identify how leadership navigated organizations through the recovery process. The study demonstrates that each case displays components of transformational leadership that facilitated businesses’ recovery. Creativity appears especially important in promoting effective leadership amid crisis and uncertainty. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• China
• creativity
• post-crisis recovery
• rural tourism
• transformational leadership

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China: [Grant Number 41871139].