The legacy of deindustrialization and associated underemployment continues to plague many former industrial communities. In these spaces, universities serve as anchors providing gateways for individual economic empowerment, and as 'brain centers' charged with generating solutions for societal problems. This paper explores the development of The Center for Strategic Ingepreneurship (CSI) at Coppin State University in Baltimore, Maryland. Strategic Ingepreneurship is seen here as a practical, innovative, solution-based approach to address underperforming job creation. The Center will serve as a university-based entity to facilitate the development and dissemination of ingepreneurial knowledge and skills through research, teaching, and practice.
This chapter presents a trust framework for facilitating equitable access to opportunity in an ingepreneurial ecosystem. An ingepreneur is “a person who engages in entrepreneurial activity with an emphasis on the innovative aspects of enterprise development while infusing creativity into every phase of the business development process. Ingepreneurs demonstrate a concern for influencing the socioeconomic trajectory of members of a select geographic or demographic community” (Williams & Klugh). Trust frameworks facilitate relationship-building between non-profit, private, and university partners, where historical distrust exists. Social migration and education are used as the context for the evolution of institutional and organizational distrust potential impediments to ingepreneurial advancement. While opportunities arise, distrust due to perceived and actual inequities creates barriers to collaborative economic development. The “trust framework for facilitating equitable access to ingepreneurial opportunity” offers a tool for potentially facilitating relational innovation.
The impact of the COVID-19 global pandemic has been pervasive. From the first report by the World Health Organization (WHO) of a “mysterious pneumonia” sickening dozens in Wuhan, China to 5,680,741 deaths, every social and economic system has been challenged. This descriptive case study utilizes a process of analytic induction to examine Makers Unite, a collaborative personal protection equipment (PPE) production project spearheaded by Open Works, a makerspace in Baltimore, Maryland. The organization produced 28,270 face shields in 56 days, averaging a production rate of 496 per day, serving over 100 clients, and resulting in a contract to produce face shields for meatpacking inspectors. The project included six full-time staff members, five temporary part-time staff members, a network of 388 volunteers and 3D printers, and two partner organizations. The study reveals best practices for establishing Lean small-scale manufacturing, developing institutional trust, community collaboration, and developing a more inclusive, agile supply chain in healthcare equipment production.
The demand for innovative, solutions-oriented approaches to closing learning competency gaps is leading to the recasting of organizations as learning and innovation-centric organizational communities. The makerspace movement is a sector where new communities are emerging to include diverse groups of entrepreneurs. The findings in this study provide insight that will assist in meeting the challenges posed by declining economic and social conditions of former industrial centers and rural communities that were part of thriving economic pipelines during the height of the industrial age. The study examines a makerspace as a solution for creating jobs, filling gaps in the supply chain, and reimagining local manufacturing. The IOC approach also possesses potential for helping to reduce equity gaps and facilitating inclusive practices. The concept of innovation-centric organizational communities, based on maximizing affective learning, is consistent with emerging 21st century workforce demands and their relationship to entrepreneurial opportunities for underserved communities.
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