Moving Out from Business as Usual: Conditions for Wealth Creation in Nigerian Tourism and Hospitality Industry
Keywords:
Innovation Capability, Institutional Support , Strategic Leadership Orientation, Tourism and Hospitality Industry, Wealth CreationAbstract
This study examines the conditions under which firms can move beyond “business-as-usual” operations to achieve sustainable wealth creation in the Nigerian tourism and hospitality industry. Specifically, it investigates the effect of strategic leadership orientation on wealth creation, the mediating role of innovation capability, and the moderating influences of institutional support and environmental dynamism. Grounded in the Resource-Based View and Dynamic Capability Theory, the study adopts a positivist philosophy and a deductive, explanatory research design. Data were collected through a cross-sectional survey of 215 managers and executives from registered tourism and hospitality firms across major Nigerian tourism hubs, with the proposed moderated–mediation model being tested using Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM). The findings reveal that strategic leadership orientation has a significant positive effect on wealth creation and strongly predicts innovation capability. Innovation capability, in turn, significantly enhances wealth creation and partially mediates the leadership–performance relationship. At the same time, institutional support fails to strengthen the direct effect of strategic leadership orientation on wealth creation. These results suggest that leadership-driven innovation, supported by enabling institutional frameworks, is essential for sectoral transformation. The study offers important managerial and policy implications by emphasizing structured innovation systems, strategic leadership development, and institutional strengthening as pathways to tourism-driven economic growth. Its originality lies in integrating leadership, innovation, and contextual contingencies within a single moderated–mediation framework tailored to an emerging economy tourism setting, thereby extending strategic management theory into a critically underexplored sector.
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