Matkailutilan sukupolvenvaihdos talonpoikaisten arvojen ohjaamana prosessina

Abstract

he aim of this multiple case study that is based on phenomenological hermeneutics is to increase our understanding of family entrepreneurship in general and succession in particular from the viewpoint of traditional values. The study is exploratory and its focus is on small family firms engaged in tourism. The research material includes narrative life stories of predecessors and successors of seven tourism farms.The main research question of the study is how traditional values affect family entrepreneurship and the succession process in small family farms engaged in tourism. The answer is pursued by exploring how they became engaged in tourism, what kind of a family entrepreneurship phenomenon tourism is, how the succession process proceeds in them, and how the change of values between predecessors and successors manifests itself. Based on existing literature, the traditional values involved the values of continuation, traditional ideas on house keeping, a will to survive, a relationship with the location and nature, autonomy, masculinity, and respect for the preceding generation.The decision to start tourism business was in most cases made by chance and it was based on factors resulting from the resources of the farm, the outer operational environment, and the entrepreneur/the entrepreneurial family. The tourism business was developed slowly with the purpose of the continuation of the farm in mind. Farm tourism businesses include more actors than what is in the three-circle model of family business, as the dimensions of ownership and leadership are spread out between farming and tourism and their transfer to the next generation might not occur simultaneously. The dimensions of family, business and ownership show some new characteristics. The succession process is carefully planned, with a fairly long mentoring phase. The succession plan includes a plan for the forthcoming distribution of an inheritance.The traditional values follow the development of the society, and thus they are portrayed in the form of three entrepreneurial generations, “the Drudges”, “the Developers”, and “the Individualists” which are named according to the type of entrepreneurship that characterizes them. “The Drudges”, who lived in a traditional society, were guided by traditional values of which erosion is seen among “the Developers” whose life is marked by enterprise. “The Individualists” resemble city dwellers as they are guided by more personal goals. The traditional values of continuation, relationship with the place and nature, and autonomy have survived, thus securing the continuity of both the farms and the tourism business.

Hilkka Lassila tarkastelee väitöskirjassaan maaseudun kehittämisen kannalta ajankohtaisia kysymyksiä: maaseutumatkailuyrittäjien arvoja ja sukupolvenvaihdosta. Lassilan mukaan matkailutilojen yritystoiminnan jatkajilla yrittäjyyden perustana on rakkaus maahan ja tilan omistamisen jatkuvuus suvussa. Lassilan väitöskirja on ensimmäinen matkailutiloja Suomessa käsittelevä tutkimus. T