Title: Entrepreneurship as a community phenomenon; reconnecting meanings and place

Authors: Alistair R. Anderson; Johan Gaddefors

Addresses: Aberdeen Business School, Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen, UK ' Rural Entrepreneurship Group, Department of Economics, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Uppsala, Sweden

Abstract: This paper explores entrepreneurship as a community phenomenon to establish the roles of entrepreneurship within the social and spatial boundaries of place. During the decade of studying this place through an entrepreneurial lens, we were able to identify processes that might normally be overlooked. One, albeit unusual, entrepreneurial event had worked to trigger these changes. We found a renewed sense of belonging and a stronger sense of place meaning that had revitalised this previously depleted community. Entrepreneurship had worked in and for the community by realigning the meanings and attributes of place. We argue that our novel unit for analysis, entrepreneurship in place, offers a broader, perhaps richer, view of entrepreneurship as a socialised phenomenon.

Keywords: societal entrepreneurship; entrepreneurship for change; longitudinal study; rural entrepreneurship; engagement; sense of belonging; sense of place; context; community phenomenon; meaning.

DOI: 10.1504/IJESB.2016.077576

International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Small Business, 2016 Vol.28 No.4, pp.504 - 518

Received: 07 Sep 2015
Accepted: 11 Sep 2015
Published online: 06 Jul 2016 *

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