Resolving resistance to rural entrepreneurial identities: an authenticity-based framework

While rural areas can benefit from entrepreneurship, sometimes rural locals resist entrepreneurial action. For nascent rural entrepreneurs, resistance can occur when they depart from social norms such that their identities become incongruent with whom their rural communities know them to be. For example, individuals who have studied and worked in traditional employment in urban areas and return home to rural areas to start a business can encounter considerable resistance from locals, including family members. We take a qualitative approach to investigate how socio-institutional resistance to returnee rural entrepreneurs manifests and is resolved. We induce an authenticity-based framework using interview data from 70 entrepreneurs and locals in rural Vietnam. Our findings explain how returnee rural entrepreneurs can experience and resolve tension within themselves and between themselves and their communities. Specifically, by building connection-based authenticity, rural entrepreneurs and local residents can find common ground for developing and legitimating new social identities. Overall, we highlight how differing authenticity beliefs can initially create conflict between locals and returnees but ultimately facilitate the acceptance of returnee rural entrepreneurs.