A review of the literature reveals that the entrepreneur's knowledge is a source of competitive advantage within the firm. This investigation assesses the relationships among small-business owners' knowledge and service quality performance in rural tourism in Spain by considering two measures of service quality: objective and perceived quality. Data from a paired sample of tourists and small-business owners were analyzed with an overall model that contains different types of variables (including dichotomic) and constructs (formative and reflective). Consequently, the partial least squares approach was used. The results reveal the positive and strong influence of small-business owners' education on objective quality, but small-business owners' experience does not seem to play any role for service quality. In addition, objective quality precedes perceived quality. Implications for the sector are derived from the findings.
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