ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the concepts and theories from institutional and social origins theory that were combined in order to shed light on an NGO-initiated rural tourism entrepreneurship project in an indigenous development area in Lago Budi, in southern Chile. It presents some of the key characteristics of Lago Budi and of the Mapuch-Lafkenche people, and it also seeks to examine critically the role of development-oriented NGOs for supporting and promoting the Indigenous entrepreneurship in Chile, and how effective ethnodevelopment has been within this context. Ethnodevelopment can in its most simple form be defined as the development of ethnic groups within the framework of the larger society. The findings from the case study confirm the claim that entrepreneurship can be seen as a Western management trend, and the idea of entrepreneurship as a rural development strategy has been spread to Lago Budi by the numerous NGOs presented in the area.
