Analysis of the Factors Influencing the Knowledge Transfer to Villagers Working in Rural Tourism: a Multiple-Case Study in China

Multiple typical case studies were conducted to identify the factors influencing the knowledge transfer to villagers working in rural tourism. The Decision-Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory-Maximum Mean De-Entropy-Interpretative Structural Modeling method was applied to analyze the hierarchical structure model of knowledge transfer's influencing factors, revealing its roles, hierarchical structure relationships, and influencing paths. The study found that (1) 13 factors affect the knowledge transfer to villagers engaged in rural tourism, which are direct factors, key factors, and root factors; (2) technological progress drives the knowledge transfer system and has strong driving power for each influencing factor; (3) knowledge specialization has the most significant effect on knowledge transfer, and knowledge specialization and willingness to transfer are dependent factors, which are more heavily influenced by the root factors; and (4) the most significant level of relation was found for prior experience, which will likely influence other factors to a greater extent. The findings of this study enhance the effectiveness of knowledge transfer to villagers engaged in rural tourism and contribute to improving the operational capacity of small rural tourism businesses.