Taking the right amount of risk is essential for successful business. As a response to the importance of risk management, the effectiveness and implementation of enterprise risk management (ERM) systems are recently discussed in literature. However, smaller firm entrepreneurs often deal with this challenge in practice in a more informal way. Most of these small and medium-sized enterprises (SME) are family firms, where family dynamics further influence their risk behaviour. Addressing the missing implementation of ERM in Small and Medium Family Enterprises (SMFE), we first analyse how ERM influences the performance of SMFE. In a second step, we investigate the impact of CEO tenure and family involvement as moderators on the ERM – performance relationship. Regression analysis on a sample of 116 Austrian SMFE shows that ERM implementation does not directly influence financial performance. CEO tenure and family involvement, however, both show significant moderating effects on the ERM – performance relationship. Adding to current literature on the topic, this study reveals that ERM performance is positively moderated by CEO tenure and negatively by family involvement.

In developing and sustaining tourism, destination management involves the coordination of various stakeholders, and theory suggests that securing sustainability, including stakeholder interests in decision-making and strategic planning is crucial. Therefore, understanding stakeholders’ interests and relationships is also essential. In the Austrian Alpine region, small- and medium-sized family businesses offering tourism products dominate the rural tourism landscape. However, little research has been done on how these family firms contribute to shaping the destination’s future. Therefore, through guided interviews, this qualitative study examined family-business owners’ perceptions of risks for Austrian tourism destination development. Family firms externalized such risks as labor shortage as a structural issue and neglected their responsibility to attract employees by improving working conditions. Thus, the externalization of risks to other stakeholder groups prevented family firms’ proactive approach to sustainable destination development.

Recognising opportunities and risks are central for every business to stay successful in the long-run and a mandatory capability to create realistic management strategies. Recent papers argue strategic planning is sustainable in the long run. However, little is known about the owner-managers' attitudes and perceptions of challenges and opportunities of family businesses. This research shows the results of a qualitative inquiry identifying attitudes on sustainability of owner-managers in tourism family firms. Furthermore, attitudes towards the three dimensions of sustainability are analysed. The results reveal an awareness of economic and social sustainability attitudes while the environmental dimension seems to be less prominent.

Tourismus ist immer auch ein Spiegel der Gesellschaft. Politische, wirtschaftliche, ökologische oder technische Einflüsse führen zu fortwährenden Veränderungen von Reisemotivationen, Reiseverhalten, Erwartungen und Bewertungsmaßstäben. Die vielgestaltigen Interdependenzen zwischen Tourismus und Gesellschaft betrachtet dieser interdisziplinäre Band von Julian Reif und Bernd Eisenstein: Ein facettenreiches Kaleidoskop, das auf den drei ineinandergreifenden Ebenen „Kontakte“, „Konflikte“ und „Konzepte“ aktuelle sozial-, wirtschafts- und tourismuswissenschaftliche Entwicklungen multiperspektivisch aufbereitet und analysiert.