How tour guides shape value co-creation for sustainability in guided tourism: a contagion perspective on climate and trait cynicism
基于社会传染理论，通过四项实验发现导游的价值共创行为能增强游客的价值共创意愿，这一效应通过游客感知的价值共创气候中介，且特质犬儒主义起负向调节作用，为导游培训和目的地管理提供启示。
Drawing on social contagion theory, this study conceptualizes value co-creation in group tours as a situational and episodic contagion process, operating in socially intensive yet temporally bounded contexts with limited normative stabilization. Across four complementary studies, including a field experiment and three scenario-based experiments, results show that tour guides’ value co-creation behaviors significantly enhance tourists’ value co-creation behavioral intentions. This effect is mediated by tourists’ perceptions of a value co-creation climate, defined as a transient, interaction-based construct reflecting rapidly formed shared perceptions within a specific tour experience rather than a stable organizational climate. The perceived climate significantly strengthens tourists’ participation behavioral intentions but does not significantly affect their citizenship behavioral intentions. In addition, trait cynicism negatively moderates the effects of tour guides’ value co-creation behaviors on both perceived climate and tourists’ value co-creation behavioral intentions. By demonstrating how contagion operates differently in short-term, experience-based tourism contexts, this study refines social contagion theory in guided tourism. Importantly, the findings suggest that tour guides function as critical leverage points for stimulating tourists’ value co-creation behavioral intentions and perceptions of a value co-creation climate, offering actionable implications for guide training and destination management aimed at fostering sustainable tourism outcomes.