Depleted communities and community business entrepreneurship: revaluing space through place

Abstract

Depleted communities are a persistent feature of late capitalism. They can be seen as areas that have lost much of their economic rationale as space, while retaining high attachments and social relations of place. While conditions in depleted communities can limit possibilities for traditional development, entrepreneurial responses are not similarly constrained. It is argued here that depleted communities can act as hosts to a unique form of enterprise that combines good business practices with community goals. We refer to this as community business entrepreneurship and argue that it is similar to, but distinct from, the traditional entrepreneurial process. To illustrate these ideas three cases are examined. Within the setting of the depleted community, the entrepreneurial process can be modified to pursue community goals, thereby creating new opportunities and making new forms of development possible.

Conceptualising animation in rural communities: the Village SOS case

“…It is better understood as animatorship because it is about community benefit in a wider sense, based on a vision of what the community could be. This clearly resonates with Johnstone and Lionais (2004).…”

“…Thus, entrepreneurial animation requires experience and virtuosity and mirrors the processes of conscientization (Berglund and Johansson 2007). To return to the literature and the discussion of animatorship possibly having contradictory impact, repleting the community in some ways while depleting it in others (Johnstone and Lionais 2004), we argue that the notion of phronesis strengthens animatorship as an analytical concept because it deals with practice and the practical and avoids interrogating or understanding other higher level theories such as practice theory.…”

“…Community development and enterprise cannot hope to succeed until the lowered morale of the community is reversed, and that must involve practices of animatorship. Johnstone and Lionais (2004) provide illuminating case studies of three depleted communities where animators created innovative organisational structures to harness community resources, set within a supportive, solidaristic context. 5 Animatorship here starts with a vision of a restored, revitalised or depleted community (notably at regional or national level), with an emphasis on employment, housing, amenities and general prosperity.…”

Endings and Visions of New Beginnings: The Effects of Source of Unemployment and Duration of Unemployment on Entrepreneurial Intent

“…Therefore, employment service agencies might consider moving beyond traditional employment services to offer such individuals entrepreneurship education and training in professional networking skills. This approach would allow laid-off individuals, especially those located in communities affected by mass layoffs (Johnstone and Lionais 2004;von Wachter 2010), to parlay developing entrepreneurial intent into actual business founding. In other words, employment service agencies could help laid-off individuals build on their cognitions about entrepreneurship to produce new businesses that might resist the high failure rate traditionally associated with necessity entrepreneurship (McMullen et al, 2008).…”

Culture, entrepreneurship and uneven development: a spatial analysis

“…Culture can be generally considered to form part of the place-based development systems linking economic performance with societal well-being (Tönnies, 1957;Easterlin, 1974;Beugelsdijk et al, 2004;Johnstone and Lionais, 2004;Huggins and Thompson, 2014). It is the cultural attributes of places that act as the glue forming the interdependency between the economic logic and societal logic of places (Knack and Keefer, 1997;Keating et al, 2003;Moulaert and Nussbaumer, 2005;Storper, 2005).…”