عوامل موثر بر سرمایه اجتماعی در جوامع گردشگری روستایی در کره جنوبی

This study aimed to identify the factors influencing social capital as it affects community conflict management for community residents in rural tourism villages. An on-site survey consisting of self-administered questionnaires was conducted with residents of rural tourism communities. These self-administered surveys were obtained from 380 community residents in the study area. A factor-clustering method identified distinct segments: high social capital (52%) and low social capital (47.7%). The estimation of a binary logistic regression model determined the characteristics of community residents who were most likely to be associated with each type of social capital. Results indicated that fruit, vegetable and rice farmers who also operated farm-stay businesses and rural activity programmes for tourists had the most social. We suggest that certain types of government policy programmes are helpful for increasing social capital and managing community conflicts by means of involvement in the tourism business.

The decline of traditional rural industries, such as agriculture, mining, and forestry, over the past three decades has required many rural communities to explore alternative means of strengthening their economic base (Andereck and Vogt, 2000 and Reeder and Brown, 2005). As a result, rural communities have investigated alternative industries to strengthen and diversify their economies. Rural tourism has been identified as one of the primary industries that may assist local communities in developing economic diversity (Davis and Morais, 2004, Hassan, 2000 and McGehee and Andereck, 2004). In recent times, rural communities in Korea have also been subjected to noteworthy social and economic changes as they respond to the pressures of the global economy. Consequently, rural tourism development has been implemented as a policy method to activate rural economies. In addition, global market liberalisations, such as FTAs, have heightened the sense of crisis in rural areas in South Korea. To overcome these problems, the Korean government has adopted a tourism development project as a method of increasing farm income and promoting rural tourism. However, this increasing interdependence between rural communities and the outside world has raised community conflicts, undermined traditional communities, and reduced social capital (Flora et al., 1992 and Pavey et al., 2007). Therefore, the development of successful rural tourism has emphasised the need for conflict management between local residents and interested parties and the importance of social capital (Belsky, 1999, Cho, 2003, Johannesson et al., 2003, Jones, 2005, Kim and Ko, 2008, Macbeth et al., 2004, Park and Kerstetter, 2002, Park et al., 2007, Taylor, 1995, van der Ploeg et al., 2000, Wyllie, 1998, Yoon and Park, 2008 and Zhao et al., 2011). Tourism development is always associated with an intrinsic probability of harming the environment, and such destruction can result in resource loss (Kousis, 2000) and conflicts of interest between various stakeholders (Kuvan & Akan, 2005). In the United States and other developed countries, although the interdependence and association between different rural communities have been strengthened, the autonomy and cohesion of rural communities have weakened. As a result, the matter of job losses and social capital loss has emerged as an important issue (Flora et al., 1992). Within the context of development, social capital generally consists of three features: trust, reciprocity, and cooperation (Flora, 1998). When these three elements are strong within communities, community residents are more likely to be able to take advantage of economic, community-building, and capacity-enhancement opportunities. Huang and Stewart (1996) indicated that tourism development may change the relationships of residents to one another and to their community. A significant portion of the literature on the social effects of tourism suggests that stakeholder involvement and community-based planning should be incorporated into the early stages of tourism development (Jamal & Getz, 1995). Robson and Robson (1996) have argued that when the residents of a community are involved in the planning process, tourism development will be perceived as appropriate by the host community. All of these studies indicate that social capital affects tourism development. Although this effect has been examined in the general context of development, few studies have specifically targeted rural tourism development. In general, local people are aware of the importance of social capital, but they do not know how to improve social capital or to determine which factors increase social capital because a systematic study of what is lacking has not been performed. Recently, the government-led development of rural tourism has caused conflicts among local people in communities and has had negative effects that have prompted criticism. Rural tourism development necessitates close interaction between local residents through mutual trust, networks, norms and social relations. It is important to identify the factors affecting the formation of social capital. The basic assumption of this study is that groups with low social capital in the development of rural tourism can cause significant conflict. In this study, social capital is defined as the dependent factor. We wanted to identify factors that affect social capital. Social capital in rural tourism communities is a stock by nature, a propensity for mutually beneficial collective action that some tourism communities possess to a higher extent than others. The origins of social capital are shrouded in uncertainty. Why some communities have a higher stock of social capital than other communities is not yet clear. However, investigations that have been conducted in different contexts and diverse countries clearly show that communities with high levels of social capital act collectively to achieve superior development results over multiple sectors and diverse activities (Grootaert, 1998, Krishna, 2001 and Narayan and Pritchett, 1997; Putnam, 1993). As an outcome of investigating the characteristics of people who possess social capital, we can create an effective strategy for rural tourism development. In addition, we wanted to be able to manage and suggest an effective method for resolving conflicts between local residents. Although social capital as an independent variable measured the effect of social capital, this social capital model emphasises the importance of a single aspect of this role. In contrast, this study considers the social capital that has already been emphasised in the context of the research results. When social capital is measured as dependent variables, some relationships between the types of social capital that affect improvement indicate methods that may increase social capital in more effective ways. Particularly, when we consider various types of social capital, the increase of each type of social capital affects the independent variables and enables us to find more effective ways of increasing social capital.

When a resident delays decisions in the process of rural tourism development, these delays result in increased social and economic costs. Such hesitancy results in negative effects, such as a decrease in administrative reliability. Even after development was completed, distrust and confrontation within rural communities had a harmful effect on the formation of a welcoming atmosphere for tourists. However, if a variety of the stakeholders who are involved in the tourism development of their community are involved in the decision-making process or benefit distribution, they can act appropriately and beneficially during the development process. In this process, the level of social capital of the community members was considered in conflict management among residents as a significant factor. High social capital assists in increasing the effectiveness of community-driven rural tourism development. The intensity of the elements of social capital (norms, trust, and networks) in rural communities affects the ability of local people to control or influence the place-specific outcomes and limits of growth in rural tourism. According to the factor analysis pertaining to social capital, there were four factors that form the dimension of the social capital of residents during the process of rural tourism development: 1) cooperation, 2) norms, 3) trust, and 4) networks. The cooperation factor showed the most variance in terms of explaining the total variance with regard to the rural tourism development activities in which residents were involved. The factor described 26.41% of the total variance. Additionally, this factor had an average score of 3.96, which is higher than the average scores of the other factors. Consequently, residents thought that the cooperation factor was the most important social capital factor in rural tourism development. Moreover, as a result of a cluster analysis, the residents were separated into two groups: a high social capital group and a low social capital group. A binary logistic regression analysis was used to ascertain the characteristics of each group and to elicit determinants that affect the social capital of residents. Based on the analysis results, certain determinants influenced the types of social capital and the strategies that enhance social capital. The variables that affected the probability of determining the types of social capital are the types of participation in rural tourism business and the main cultivated plants. The types of participation in rural tourism business had a positive value. In each category, the sale of agricultural products, the preparation of group meals, lodging, and experiential programmes were all positive. This finding indicates that people who participate in these activities have a higher probability of belonging to a high social capital group. This result also implies that, regardless of the tourism business category, financial benefits from tourism development are crucial to building more social trust and cooperation in communities. Rural tourism in South Korea is an emerging business in the rural areas surrounding rural tourism destinations, and the development of this business has been minimal. As implied by other studies (Allen et al., 1993, Gursoy et al., 2002 and Perdue et al., 1990), the residents of such areas may be more concerned about the benefits of tourism development than its costs. This research showed that local people who cultivate livestock and special crops and non-rural households have a lower probability of possessing social capital than those groups that cultivate fruits, vegetables, or rice. Thus, the groups that grow fruits, vegetables, or rice as a main crop had a higher probability of belonging to a high society capital group because farmers cultivating fruits, vegetables, and rice had a relatively higher incentive to participate in cooperative agricultural production activities than the other groups. Moreover, when more information is exchanged, farmers who cultivate rice, fruits, and vegetables exhibit more cooperative behaviour to comply with social norms and social trust. The general socio-economic factors, including age, gender, education, income and household composition, did not influence the social capital of the villagers involved in rural tourism development. Thus, the results of this research differ from the research results presented in previous studies (Alesina and La Ferrara, 2000, Alesina et al., 1999, Carpiano, 2007, Kim and Won, 2003 and Ryan et al., 2005). However, Narayan and Pritchett (1997) surveyed 1370 households in Tanzania regarding collaborative life and the quantity and quality of social norms related to collaborative life, and they suggested that the relationship between social capital and household income was significant, and more heterogeneous groups were likely to have higher levels of social capital. Furthermore, Grootaert and Bastelare (2002a) defined social capital as the interaction between people and institutions, relationships, attitudes, and values. He researched factors that included the number of organisation members, the heterogeneity within an organisation, participation, and decisions. He surveyed 1200 Indonesians on the basis of this definition. The result of this research also showed that more heterogeneous groups were associated with higher levels of social capital. Thus, both of these two previous studies demonstrated an important finding: more heterogeneous groups are likely to have higher levels of social capital. Moreover, this previous research studied the general public, but the target of our research was rural people. This rural group had lower heterogeneity than other groups. In other words, respondents did not respond to different kinds of social capital such as social norms, trust, and networks. There were only low and high social capital groups. Nevertheless the measurement of social capital has been considered ‘bridging social capital’ such as network variables, respondents in cluster analysis did not identify those kinds of social capital groups but simply high and low social capital groups. This lack of diversity within social capital in Korea was one of the characteristics of rural areas. Therefore, we showed that rural areas had a simple effect on social capital. Therefore, the research has some limitations that the determinants of social capital groups such as norm, trusts, and networks were not identified in detail. This study also did not show ‘bridging’ social capital suggested in the previous studies (Macbeth et al., 2004 and McGehee et al., 2010). Furthermore, this research separated and examined primary cultivated crops. However, these findings showed results that are similar to those of previous research that demonstrated the people who have professional jobs have high social capital. We also showed that a rural household was more likely to belong to a group with higher social capital than a non-rural household. The job characteristics of non-rural households entailed that the residents of these households did not need to cooperate with the village community to the extent that those in rural households did. Additionally, the length of residence negatively influenced social capital. That is, residents who have lived in their village for longer periods of time are likely to belong to lower social capital group. This result is not consistent with the results of previous research (Andereck et al., 2005 and McGehee et al., 2010). Because rural tourism villages in South Korea have struggled with low incomes and older populations, rural villages have been losing traditional leadership, and newcomers in the tourism business are establishing new decision-making processes. Therefore, in the beginning stages of tourism development, tourism services in rural areas are provided by newcomers and younger generations because long-time residents and older populations are often unfamiliar with tourism businesses. Moreover, the social capital of rural households participating in the tourism business was higher than that of nonparticipating groups. This result was consistent with the results of previous studies (Andereck and Vogt, 2000, McGehee and Andereck, 2004 and Sirakaya et al., 2002). When local people gain more personal benefits from tourism development, they are more likely to be collaborative and supportive with respect to tourism development. Thus, resource dependence has a central role in the cooperative actions that occur and in cooperation processes that require reciprocal sympathy. Identifying and highlighting interdependencies among the participants and their institutions can assist in inducing cooperative behaviour. McGehee et al. (2010) indicated that the most successful destinations have found ways to engage in collective decision making regarding the goals of these communities and the ways in which these goals could be attained through the development of cohesive tourism products. The results of this research offer implications regarding how to proceed with rural tourism development business plans. These plans could be successful even in an environment of criticism, in which a controversial rural tourism development business is said to destroy community order in a rural community. In other words, a rural tourism development business should attempt to encourage the cooperation of local people and involve people who have low participation rates in the business. This approach will assist in managing conflicts among the people who reside in these communities. In terms of social capital variables, while this study focused on cognitive social capital (perception of social capital) as opposed to actual existing one such as structural social capital (Harpham et al., 2002 and Zhao et al., 2011) and to social networks analysis (Jeong, 2008), future studies might want to attempt to examine those kinds of social capital variables.