Links Between Entrepreneurial Culture and Business Performance: A Study of Small and Medium-Sized Tourist Hotels in Sri Lanka

The tourism industry of Sri Lanka is inevitably dominated by small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Notwithstanding the poor development of economic health in Sri Lanka, accommodation and food service activities have historically shown a positive sectoral distribution. Moreover, small and medium-sized tourist hotels are currently recognized as one of the fastest-growing segments. Hence, an argument can be made that such hotels have a substantial impact onthesociocultural and socioeconomic development of Sri Lanka. As a distinct cultural typology, entrepreneurial culture has not been commonly exposed to academic research. However, few scholars have previously investigated the links between entrepreneurial culture and business performance in some market sectors and yielded positive results. Thus, the purpose of this study is to uncover the links between entrepreneurial culture and business performance of small and medium-sized tourist hotels in Sri Lanka. This study is a survey-based, cross-sectional quantitative study. Employing simple random sampling, a total of 59 one-star and two-star hotels have been selected as the sample from the 159 classified tourist hotels listed by the Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority. The findings reveal that a conducive entrepreneurial culture improves the business performance of such hotels by anticipating new market trends and favorable opportunities. This empirical study has a national significance in terms of theoretical and practical perspectives.