Narrating Village and Market: Returnee Entrepreneurial Narratives and Performance on Digital Platforms

Returnee entrepreneurs connect rural communities with wider markets and contribute to local development. Digital platforms expand their market reach but intensify competition for audience attention amid similar rural content. Existing research explains how resources and local embeddedness shape returnee entrepreneurial performance, but offers less insight into how entrepreneurs present these advantages to external audiences. Drawing on cultural entrepreneurship theory, we distinguish village connection narrative from market operation narrative and examine the role of narrative activity. We analyse 1922 account-month observations from 476 returnee entrepreneurs on Douyin using dictionary-based measures and panel fixed-effects models. Village connection narrative was positively associated with performance. The association between market operation narrative and performance weakened as narrative emphasis increased, and a complete inverted U-shaped pattern was evident only at low narrative activity. Narrative activity did not significantly strengthen the VCN–performance relationship, whereas higher narrative activity was associated with a flatter MON–performance relationship. These findings extend understanding of how returnee entrepreneurs present their village relationships and market operations through narratives, and how narrative content and activity relate to entrepreneurial performance.