Abstract
This study empirically examines how vision-driven leadership, which articulates public-oriented purposes such as reconstruction and regional co-creation, and joint leadership interact to advance regional co-creation and contribute to regional revitalization, drawing on the practices of business leaders engaged in Tohoku’s reconstruction and revitalization. Although the role of business leaders who spearhead regional development has attracted increasing attention in recent years, research remains limited on their characteristics and on the mechanisms through which they generate co-creation. Focusing on two entrepreneurs who, in the aftermath of the Great East Japan Earthquake, founded new businesses in Akiu, Sendai City, Miyagi Prefecture and have been engaged in reconstruction and regional revitalization, this study conducts a qualitative analysis based on approximately five years of university–industry collaboration, participant observation, and semi-structured interviews. In Akiu, a long-established hot-spring tourism destination, the two entrepreneurs created new industries under the concept of “Terroage,” exercised joint leadership that complemented their respective strengths, and promoted empathy-building among stakeholders inside and outside the region. The analysis suggests that, in this process, joint leadership evolved into shared leadership, accompanied by the expansion of regional co-creation and collaborative networks. The resulting “Akiu Model” presents a hypothetical framework in which the visualization of the guiding public-purpose vision and the cultivation of empathy trigger an evolutionary process in leadership and mutually reinforcing development of regional co-creation. This study contributes not only to reconstruction and revitalization in disaster-affected regions but also offers theoretical implications for deepening leadership research and practical implications for designing regional co-creation models.
