Author(s):
1. Liliya Terzieva,

Abstract:
According to Tonder (2003, p1) the new society is characterized predominantly by consumption where people create a sense of who they are through what they consume. Simply stated, consumers from a century ago were concerned about the utility value (does it solve my problem?) whereas today’s consumers focus on the intangibles – cultural or symbolic – values (does it promote my identity?). Wolfe and Snyder (2004) also point out that numerous recent consumer surveys reported people were looking less for “things” and more for “experiences” to achieve personal satisfaction in their lives. This means that consumers need more than just a product or service. This becomes more and more valid for the tourism sector and especially the cultural one, whereas the entrepreneurial learning has become the collective learning and the exchange and co-creation of value – communities of practice. To create a cultural tourism experience, consumers became more willing than ever to participate in the process with all stakeholders. In other words, they want to be active and have their opinions to make an impact on the tourism product generated in order to suit their lifestyles and preferred experiences. Today, things are done with consumers in an interactive value creation process (Lusch et al., 2007; Vargo & Lusch, 2008). In the cross-border regions of Bulgaria and Romania there have been already thriving initiatives of developing and sustaining entrepreneurial efforts towards the cultural tourism synergies, whereby the collective community explores the possible routes for establishment of communities of practice. By means of this paper the author makes an attempt to analyze a model for entrepreneurial learning and community of practice establishment in a cross-border region of two economies of transition – the Bulgarian and the Romanian based on the case of the cultural tourism. The theoretical framework used for the current study is the Complexity theory (McMillan, 2010), the concept of organization as a complex system, capable of naturally evolving strategies, structures and processes and self-adjusting to changes in environment, implying new lens for the researcher in understanding the nature of the organization. The Methodology used for this research includes desk research, semi-structured interviews and collaborative sessions for the data collection; in addition, the data collected has been analyzed by means of the thematic analysis method as part of the data analysis.

Key words:
Entrepreneurial learning, communities of practice, cultural tourism, cross-border cooperation, co-creation, experience, complex theory

Date of abstract submission:
07.03.2014.

Conference:
REDETE 2014 - Researching Economic Development and Entrepreneurship in Transition Economies