Driving Opportunity Recognition through Entrepreneurial attitudes: Evidence from Women-led Tourism SMEs in Ghana

Opportunity recognition is significant to innovation and competitiveness in tourism destinations. However, limited research has investigated the attitudinal mechanisms through which women entrepreneurs identify market opportunities in emerging economies. Drawing on the Theory of Planned Behaviour and Social Cognitive Theory, this study examines how entrepreneurial attitude, entrepreneurial self-efficacy, risk tolerance, and perseverance influence opportunity recognition among women-owned tourism SMEs in Ghana. A quantitative, cross-sectional research design was adopted, and data were collected from a sample of 285 female tourism entrepreneurs operating within accommodation, food services, tour operations, travel services, and cultural tourism subsectors. Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM) was employed to analyse the hypothesised relationships among the study variables. The findings revealed that entrepreneurial attitude, entrepreneurial self-efficacy, risk tolerance, and perseverance all significantly and positively influence opportunity recognition, with entrepreneurial attitude emerging as the strongest predictor, followed by self-efficacy and perseverance, and risk tolerance showing the smallest, though still significant, effect. Collectively, the four predictors explained a substantial proportion of variance in opportunity recognition. The study contributes to entrepreneurship and tourism literature by advancing opportunity recognition theory within a gendered and tourism-specific context, demonstrating that general attitude toward entrepreneurship and more specific psychological orientations concerning capability, risk, and persistence each function as distinct cognitive resources for opportunity identification. Practically, the findings provide insights for policymakers, tourism development agencies, and entrepreneurial support institutions seeking to strengthen women’s participation, innovation, and competitiveness within emerging tourism economies.