Author Bios (50 Words for each Author)

Jing Li is a doctoral candidate of Department of Parks, Recreation and Tourism Management, North Carolina State University. Her research focuses on adopting a psychosocial approach with social network analysis to examine association performance in tourism and hospitality-related sectors. Jing is a lover of photographing and cooking outside of campus.

Carla Barbieri is an Associate Professor in Equitable and Sustainable Tourism (North Carolina State University, USA) where she leads the “Agritourism & Societal Wellbeing” lab. She investigates the economic, socio-cultural, and environmental impacts of agritourism at the farm household and society levels. She also studies the sustainability of niche tourism.

Jordan Smith is the Director of the Institute of Outdoor Recreation and Tourism and Assistant Professor in Department of Environment and Society of Utah State. His research examines how humans make behavioral and planning adaptations in response to rapidly changing environmental conditions. Jordan is an active cyclist and motorcyclist off-campus.

Abstract (150 Words)

Agritourism has grown steadily since the 1980s. However, many farmers lack of entrepreneurial skills and business competencies to deal with the increasing demand. In response, agritourism associations have emerged to provide their members a diverse range of resources and information to increase their entrepreneurial preparedness. These associations also help build social capital and social networks, which are vital to mobilizing resources and facilitating information exchange among members. However, little empirical evidence exists detailing how effective agritourism associations are in increasing farmers’ ability to access desired resources and information. Therefore, we will collect data from members of an agritourism association to visually display the social capital and social networks within agritourism associations using social network analysis. In this presentation, we discuss the theoretical importance of social capital and how it is transmitted through social networks; we also discuss our research design and the implications for major findings for agritourism operators.

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Social Network Analysis: An Application to Agritourism Associations

Agritourism has grown steadily since the 1980s. However, many farmers lack of entrepreneurial skills and business competencies to deal with the increasing demand. In response, agritourism associations have emerged to provide their members a diverse range of resources and information to increase their entrepreneurial preparedness. These associations also help build social capital and social networks, which are vital to mobilizing resources and facilitating information exchange among members. However, little empirical evidence exists detailing how effective agritourism associations are in increasing farmers’ ability to access desired resources and information. Therefore, we will collect data from members of an agritourism association to visually display the social capital and social networks within agritourism associations using social network analysis. In this presentation, we discuss the theoretical importance of social capital and how it is transmitted through social networks; we also discuss our research design and the implications for major findings for agritourism operators.