Mechanisms of Eco-agritourism Integration in Promoting Common Prosperity: A Social Exchange Perspective

Abstract

The integration of eco-agritourism is a significant pathway to common prosperity in rural China, yet existing studies lack a micro-level explanation of how farmers’ subjective perceptions mediate value conversion. Drawing on social exchange theory, this paper builds a three-dimensional sense-of-gain framework—economic, ecological, and socio-cultural—and examines three cases in Shaoxing, Zhejiang: Tangdi Village, Jidong Town, and Batoushan Village. The findings show that resource endowments shape divergent transmission paths. In Tangdi Village, the flower and tree industry supplies the material basis for villagers’ identification. In Jidong Town, the ancient torreya grandis resources make ecological-value recognition a prerequisite for later economic returns. In Batoushan Village, as the ancestral home of Lu You, socio-cultural identification builds community cohesion. Although the three dimensions can reinforce one another, this synergy depends on tightly coupled interest linkages. The cases—Tangdi’s Common Prosperity Workshop, Jidong’s unified brand operation, and Batoushan’s collective IP governance—show that only when value-added returns accrue to farmers, rather than merely through wage jobs, does sense of gain move from objective improvement to subjective recognition.