Toward Entrepreneurial Community Development is about developing entrepreneurial communities, and goes beyond theories of the firm to demonstrate how local and regional society contributes in important ways to the vitality of entrepreneurs. The literature is rich with insights about leadership and culture within SMEs, and the behaviours and attitudes of their founders, founding teams, and managers. Since most of the attention in the entrepreneurship literature is focused on firms, we wish to explore everyone else: The social environment surrounding the entrepreneur, and how leadership and culture outside the firm can have pervasive effects on the business. This book reaches across disciplinary boundaries, integrating and advancing knowledge on entrepreneurial community development. The book identifies actionable leadership strategies that can be used by literally anyone to help make a community or region a more culturally-supportive, interactive home for entrepreneurial minds. We draw from original research to compare high and low entrepreneurship communities, and present an emergent picture of how community-level actors can (or fail to) work together to support entrepreneurship in places that are culturally distant from the Silicon Valley (i.e., most places). Toward Entrepreneurial Community Development then offers techniques for entrepreneurial community leadership, including how to build lasting alliances, create an image, and harness the local culture for entrepreneurial advantage. The result is a book that provides the reader with the latest advancements and techniques in entrepreneurship development in a straight-forward, readable format. No matter the reader, Toward Entrepreneurial Community Development demonstrates how anyone, in any position, can lead a local entrepreneurship movement starting anywhere, anytime.
Entrepreneurial Communities and Ecosystems: Theories in Culture, Empowerment, and Leadership examines the deep sociocultural dynamics supporting effective and emergent entrepreneurial ecosystems and communities for a new generation of ecosystem builders and researchers. The book provides current theories and discussion with relevant examples regarding culture, empowerment, and leadership in entrepreneurship to build more entrepreneurial communities anywhere, beginning with any set of local advantages. It clarifies the role of community in building an entrepreneurial ecosystem, and expands the theory on how entrepreneurial communities and ecosystems differ, and how they relate. The book also illuminates the often avoided discussion about power, with special attention to diversity with examples of Black, women, and LGBTQA+ entrepreneurship; provides a deep dive into the range of formal and informal education framed as entreprenology; ties the importance of entrepreneurship and entrepreneuring to resources available at the community, state, and national levels; and introduces a new concept — omnipreneurship — which puts the skills of entrepreneurship in the service of global benefit and everyday action. This research volume will be equally useful as an undergraduate or graduate text on the sociology of entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship as it is a field guide for ecosystem builders, policy makers, nonprofits, and entrepreneurship and social researchers worldwide.
Entrepreneurial Communities and Ecosystems: Case Study Insights aims to provide applied examples that embody the theories, principles, and processes that contribute to empowering everyday entrepreneurial communities and ecosystems. Relying on a diversity of narratives from a wide range of entrepreneurial communities, entrepreneurial ecosystems, and organizations, this book presents a collection of case studies that take the reader inside the minds of leaders who are working to empower entrepreneurs and build entrepreneurial ecosystems and entrepreneurial communities—sometimes from scratch. The book features research and stories from entrepreneurs, development agencies, entrepreneurial support and assistance organizations (i.e. feeders and supports), governments, and involved citizens and local leaders in their quest to make their communities more entrepreneuring. The book presents an analytic frame through which the case studies are cross-analyzed, providing "meta-guidelines" for pursuing a broad range of strategies for supporting local and regional entrepreneurial action. This research volume is equally useful as an undergraduate or graduate text on the sociology of entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship as it is a field guide for ecosystem builders, policy makers, nonprofits, and entrepreneurship and social researchers worldwide.
Despite the growing evidence on the importance of the neighbourhood, entrepreneurship studies have largely neglected the role of neighbourhoods. This book addresses the nexus between entrepreneurship, neighbourhoods and communities, confirming not only the importance of ‘the local’ in entrepreneurship, but also filling huge gaps in the knowledge base regarding this tripartite relationship.
In line with the World Declaration on Education for All and the Millennium Goal of halving poverty in the world by the year 2015, education is expected to serve not only the acquisition of academic knowledge but also the preparation of young people for life and work. Secondary education has to meet the challenge of providing skills for successfully dealing with economies and work patterns in transition and changing cultural values. Education that makes young people entrepreneurial in a broad sense would be part of this solution. This volume draws on various experiences in entrepreneurial education around the world. It aims to provoke discussion on such questions as: How can we harness the imagination and entrepreneurial talents of secondary students as assets for development? How should these talents be channelled? What are the contents, subjects, topics that support the entrepreneurial process? What is the best institutional framework for entrepreneurship education? What kind of teacher is needed? How do we systematically measure the performance of entrepreneurship education and training?
This book takes a close look at the contribution of small firms to the U.S. economy and at the contrasts between traditional development policies and those often recommended to help the small enterprise. The book offers systematic guidelines that will assist economic developers, policy makers, and private citizens in their efforts to promote entrepreneurship and assure sound economic development at local and state levels. Recent Publications on Governmental Problems The widespread interest in entrepreneurship as a means of creating jobs and raising incomes has resulted in a growing demand for an economic and political environment that will nurture small business ventures. Accordingly, the promotion of entrepreneurship has taken its place alongside industrial recruitment as a component of economic developement policy. In this study, Benjamin Mokry considers whether it makes sense to devise such policies without first exploring more thoroughly the dynamics of entrepreneurship and the possible impact of government initiatives. In a careful analysis based on in-depth research on state and local development policies, he points up existing information gaps and suggests a realistic framework for approaching policy design in this area.
