Regional Development by Means of Broadened Entrepreneurship

Abstract

Today entrepreneurship does not constitute one grand narrative, rather it consists of a plurality of sub-discourses, some of them in sharp contrast to others. In academic texts as well as in practice, we find both dominant and broader meanings of entrepreneurship. It is discussed in this article how a dominant meaning of entrepreneurship historically can be associated with industrialization, large firms, hero entrepreneurs and ideas of “bürgerlichen Gesellschaft”. As we now live in a society where large manufacturing firms no longer dominate, broader conceptions of entrepreneurship emerges, allowing for the idea of an entrepreneurial potential of ordinary (wo)men. This article gives glimpses of how a broad entrepreneurship is enacted in a regional context. These glimpses illustrate the following.

1. Networks which give plenty of room for spontaneous interaction can mobilize entrepreneurial identities.

2. Individuals provide role models for how “Gesellschaft” can be resisted and balanced by “Gemeinschaft” in the society of today

3. The core of entrepreneurship does not need to be thought of in terms of an exclusive capacity for innovation but rather as something which is an outflow of ordinary life when not restricted by discourse.

Adopting a broad view of entrepreneurship implies for policy-makers to encourage the mobilization of entrepreneurship instead of trying to “pick the winners”.

Notes

I disregard here that, to my knowledge, entrepreneurship as a term was not used at this time or in this context.

Some readers may think I am way out when I equate entrepreneurship with “getting things done”. But, as these readers will see later in the text, I really do challenge the idea that entrepreneurs are only those who start and develop a firm.

It needs to be added that it is not whether or not these women actually should be qualified to receive a loan that is the issue here. It is the way of referring to the thick threads of the entrepreneurship discourse disqualifying these women as entrepreneurs that is the issue. They were in fact prepared to start without taking loans, but this experience affected them so that they did not start in this city.

A good analysis of how business networks and social networks work together is provided by Johannisson et al. (2001). The social character of networks among established small businesses is rather well known in the entrepreneurship literature, but here this kind of “holistic” network is associated with how the forming of an entrepreneurial identity takes place. It seems as if the “social” part is looked down upon when it is related to individuals who are in the process of creating their business, which is not the case when businesses are already established.

Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft also refer to the rural–urban dimension discussed by Johannisson and Lindholm Dahlstrand (2009). Gemeinschaft relates to the rural, but not in a pure territorial sense, but to the values we associate with a rural lifestyle, but it could as well appear in an urban territorial setting and vice versa. In this way, the family as a basic value source (Johannisson & Wigren, 2006) relates to Gemeinschaft, whether taking place in the rural or the urban territorium.