“It's how you live”- understanding culturally embedded entrepreneurship: an example from Solomon Islands

ABSTRACT

This article adds to critical discussions around entrepreneurship in the Pacific. By drawing on an example of an entrepreneur from rural Solomon Islands, it illustrates how complex negotiations between cultural and commercial imperatives affect and influence cultural and economic decision making. The objective of this article is to argue for a more inclusive conception of entrepreneurship in development strategies; one that shifts from a narrow economic focus to consider entrepreneurship as a relational practice across possessive and distributive economic agencies to better understand the social, cultural, and economic goals that motivate and influence indigenous entrepreneurs.

KEYWORDS:

• Region-Oceania and Japan
• social wellbeing
• Poverty reduction - Labour and livelihoods
• rural development
• entrepreneurship

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Michael Spann

Michael Spann is an Adjunct Lecturer in the School of Political Science and International Studies at the University of Queensland. His research interests include theoretical and methodological concerns of the global politics of development, local conceptions of entrepreneurship and global food systems. He is also a Founding Director of Square Circle Global Development, a development consulting firm based in Brisbane, Australia.