Webinar-Based Learning for Digitalisation: An Empirical Study from European Tourism SMEs

Educational shock has occurred when the COVID-19 pandemic hit the world. Lockdown and social distancing have changed the way the education sector operates. Learning and teaching activities have been moved to online platforms. Webinars in the form of either online classrooms or video seminars are the approaches we are using and, potentially, it will be the major method in the education sector after the crisis. This study investigates the webinar learning willingness of managers of small tourism enterprises in digitalising their business. The motivation for webinar learning for digitalisation has not been widely explored in entrepreneurial learning literature. This study addresses a fundamental question by developing a motivation theory-based to understand webinar-based learning for small businesses. The webinar learning willingness model was developed based upon Vroom expectancy theory, Ajzen planned behaviour theory, and Gibbons' willingness theory. We tested our hypotheses by exploring data available from Tourism Digitalisation Research Survey undertaken by the “Management and Content Provision for ICT and Tourism Business Support Portal” project funded by the European Commission in 2016. A sample of 2779 responses drawn from the survey is an appropriate dataset that we can test our theory because it explores the experience and perceptions of small businesses associated with digitalisation. We then use confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) to examine the validity and reliability of measurements and a logistic regression analysis to test our hypotheses. The results show that the experience, perceptions, attitude and plan associated with digitalisation influence webinar learning willingness of both small established and start-up firms.