• Analyze entrepreneurial processes, in particular in relation to the course areas of sustainability, business ethics and diversity management in tourism and hospitality.
• Use the concepts and tools seen in the course to identify the elements that need to be considered to develop and strengthen entrepreneurial initiatives.
• Demonstrate capabilities to design and develop tourism and hospitality entrepreneurial ventures that take into consideration the course areas of sustainability, business ethics and diversity and inclusion.
• Demonstrate critical thinking abilities to explain and discuss the theoretical and empirical perspectives introduced in the course as a means of evaluating tourism and hospitality services.

The course content is theoretical knowledge, empirical cases and practical tools of social, sustainable and/or ethical entrepreneurship which are applied to the tourism and hospitality sectors. The course is structured according to three main phases of the entrepreneurship innovation process. The first phase focusses on entrepreneurship idea generation, team building and the selection of topics/problems. This first phase comprises lectures centered on theoretical knowledge and tools on sustainable and social entrepreneurship and innovation in the field of tourism and hospitality. It includes a studio-interactive based session on design methods and techniques applied to tourism innovation. The aim of this first phase is to enable students to establish their teams and begin the design of their entrepreneurial initiative while attaining in-depth knowledge on sustainability in tourism/hospitality. Sustainability perspectives address organizational/business, destinations and consumer aspects. A specific focus of this first phase will be to utilize cases or examples, which include the analysis of one or several digital tourism perspectives.

The second phase of the course provides theoretical perspectives on entrepreneurship business ethics in tourism and hospitality.

The three main business ethics perspectives – virtue ethics, deontology and utilitarianism - provide students with the necessary knowledge to apply ethical considerations to the development of their service innovation. The phase is structured as a series of theoretical lectures with debates and exercises based on exemplary cases of tourism/hospitality entrepreneurship and their ethical dimensions. These cases can examine specific ethical challenges such as discrimination, governance, environment, and profit-making aspects in the tourism sector. The module explores the extent to which ethical principles should or do vary by practice context. In this phase students focus on their service product development and make a business ethics analysis of the process and expected impacts of their service innovation. 

The third phase of the course is centered on entrepreneurship for diversity and inclusion management. This phase theoretical and tool framework focusses on managerial and behavioral aspects of diversity and inclusion applied to tourism and hospitality in a variety of categories such as gender, ethnicity, race or disability. Special emphasis is given to the tourist and demand perspectives. It provides theoretical insights on social stereotyping, prejudice and bias, diversity and inclusion strategies and normativity theory. Students gain competences to analyse diversity and inclusion aspects of different tourism cases and of their tourism service product development. This final phase of the course includes a diversity and entrepreneurship lab with presentations by students on their pilot cases/projects. 

This is not final and should be taken as a general orientation: 

The course literature consists of a compendium of articles, book chapters and excerpts.

Baum, T., Cheung, C., Kong, H., Kralj, A., Mooney, S., Thi Thanh, H. N., Ramachandran, S., Ruzic, M. D. & Siow, M. L. (2016). Sustainability and the tourism and hospitality workforce: A thematic analysis. Sustainability, 8, 1–21.

Brown, T. & Wyatt, J. 2010. Design Thinking for Social Innovation. Stanford Social Innovation Review.

Christensen, J. F., Mahler, R., & Teilmann-Lock, S. (2020). GenderLAB: Norm-critical Design Thinking for Gender Equality and Diversity. Organization.  https:/​/​doi.org/​10.1177/​1350508420961528

Costa, C., Bakas, F. E., Breda, Z., Durão, M., Carvalho, I., & Caçador, S. (2017). Gender, flexibility and the 'ideal tourism worker'. Annals of Tourism Research, 64, 64-75. 

Cuddy, A. J., Fiske, S. T., & Glick, P. (2008). Warmth and competence as universal dimensions of social perception: The stereotype content model and the BIAS map. Advances in experimental social psychology, 40, 61-149.

Fennell, D. A. (2017). Tourism ethics. Channel View Publications. (one chapter)

Grimwood, B. S., Caton, K., & Cooke, L. (Eds.). (2018). New moral natures in tourism. Routledge. (one chapter)

Hardin, C. D., & Banaji, M. R. (2013). The Nature of Implicit Prejudice: Implications for Personal and Public Policy. In E. Shafir (Ed.), The Behavioral Foundations of Public Policy (pp. 13–31). Princeton: Princeton University Press.

IDEO: Human Centered Design Toolkit - Method instructions for social entrepreneurs (with detailed method cards). Available via: https:/​​/​​www.designkit.org/​​resources/​​1/​​.

Jamal, T., & Higham, J. (2021). Justice and ethics: towards a new platform for tourism and sustainability. Journal of Sustainable Tourism, 29(2-3), 143-157.

Jones, C., Parker, M., & Ten Bos, R. (2005). For business ethics. Routledge. (basic reader for the part of business ethics). Literature for the four different theoretical approaches:

• Virtue Ethics (e.g. excerpts from Aristotle’s Eudemian Ethics and Nichomachean Ethics - plus M. Nussbaum, A. MacIntyre, P. Foot, or chapter in basic reader).
• Deontology (e.g. excerpts from Kant’s Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals (1785) - plus J. Rawls, C. Korsgaard or a chapter in basic reader) 
• Utilitarianism (e.g. excerpts from J. Bentham: An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation (1789) and J.S. Mill:Utilitarianism (1863) – plus P. Singer, T. Nagel or chapter in basic reader). 
• An ethics of “deconstruction” (e.g. excerpts from Derrida and Lévinas  - plus S. Crichtley or chapter in basic reader)

Just, S. N., Risberg, A., & Villeséche, F. (Eds.) (2021). The Routledge Companion to Organizational Diversity Research Methods. Routledge. Routledge Companions in Business, Management and Marketing https:/​/​doi.org/​10.4324/​9780429265716 (one chapter)

Kato, K. (2019). Gender and sustainability–exploring ways of knowing–an ecohumanities perspective. Journal of Sustainable Tourism, 27(7), 939–956.

Lee, E. (2017). Performing colonisation: The manufacture of Black female bodies in tourism research. Annals of Tourism Research, 66, 95-104.

McIntosh, A., & Harris, C. (2018). Representations of hospitality at the special needs hotel. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 75, 153-159.

Ramanayake, U., Cockburn-Wootten, C., & McIntosh, A. J. (2019). The ‘MeBox’method and the emotional effects of chronic illness on travel. Tourism Geographies, 1-23.

Small, J. (2021). The sustainability of gender norms: women over 30 and their physical appearance on holiday. Journal of Sustainable Tourism, 1-17.

Sparviero, S. 2019. The Case for a Socially Oriented Business Model Canvas: The Social Enterprise Model Canvas. Journal of Social Entrepreneurship, 10(2), 232-251.