Entrepreneurship in Regional Communities

Exploring the Relevance of Embeddedness, Networking, Empowerment and Communitarian Values

Sujana Adapa, Alison Sheridan, Subba Reddy Yarram

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN:
  9783030605582
• eBook ISBN:
  9783030605599
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Entrepreneurship
• Index: Business

Focusing on nascent firms, established growing firms and established plateaued forms within the northern inland New South Wales regional locations in Australia, this book explores the manifestation of entrepreneurship. In particular, the authors examine the state and status of regional entrepreneurship in the bioregions and investigate how gender plays out in the entrepreneurial space. The authors present a detailed macro environmental framework, national and international literature syntheses and the differences between regional and urban businesses exploring the secondary data. Through interviews and primary data gathering, the authors explore the context in which the businesses operate and showcase the uniqueness of regional embeddedness, place-based initiatives, networking opportunities and communitarian values. Insightful reading for anyone interested in the facets regional entrepreneurship and gender studies, this book provides important implications for academic scholars, government officials, business practitioners, financial institutions, and other stakeholders who are involved in effective formulation of innovative business growth strategies.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021

S. Adapa et al.Entrepreneurship in Regional Communitieshttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-60559-9_1

Begin Abstract

1. Setting the Scene

Sujana Adapa¹ , Alison Sheridan¹ and Subba Reddy Yarram¹

(1)

UNE Business School, University of New England, Armidale, NSW, Australia

Alison Sheridan

Email: [email protected]

End Abstract

Introduction

It is clear that economic prosperity and a high standard of living are not the result of macroeconomic policies alone. The differences in economic outcomes we see across communities within a country point to the influence of local conditions, institutions and orientation in determining the economic performance of a place (Mack & Mayer, 2016; Rocha, 2013). There is compelling empirical evidence that those cities and regions exhibiting more entrepreneurial activity also generate higher levels of economic performance (Rocha, 2013; Saxenian, 1994; Stuetzer et al., 2018).

We live and work in a regional community and have long been fascinated by the differences we have observed in the types of entrepreneurial activity across regional communities. While the evidence points to innovative entrepreneurship as typically a city phenomenon in Australia (Hassan, Bucifal, Drake, & Hendrickson, 2015) and studies have demonstrated lower entrepreneurship rates in regional centres (Obschonka et al., 2015), as academics teaching and researching in a regional context, we are adamant that the manifestation of entrepreneurship in regional communities must not be overlooked. It is impossible to universalize entrepreneurship—entrepreneurship is by its nature about variation and it varies in different dimensions (Welter, Baker, Audretsch, & Gartner, 2017)—and place matters (Bosma et al., 2020). With this foundational assumption, our aim is to make visible the doing of entrepreneurship in regional communities.

We do this by canvassing what we know about entrepreneurship from an international and national level, before we consider it at the regional level, by focusing on our two case study communities, the bioregions of Tamworth and Armidale where, through the stories of a sample of business owners, we draw on individual business owners’ experiences and insights to ‘colour in’ what the regional context means. Through the weaving together of the different levels we build our framework for the doing of entrepreneurship in regional communities. In considering the doing of entrepreneurship in regional communities, we believe we cannot ignore the doing of gender (Adapa, Rindfleish, & Sheridan, 2016; Sheridan, Haslam McKenzie, & Still, 2011a).

Existing gender and entrepreneurship research commonly positions individual women as the key unit of analysis where the focus is on their lack of necessary entrepreneurial attributes, attitudes and ambitions required to enact entrepreneurial potential (Ahl & Marlow, 2012). This simplistic representation of gender and entrepreneurship is being countered by a growing body of work pointing to the interplay of individual and societal factors—the gender regimes and gender order—impacting on women’s and men’s entrepreneurship (Ahl & Marlow, 2012; Brush, Ali, Kelley, & Greene, 2017; Jennings & Brush, 2013). What we noted from the existing literature on regional entrepreneurship, either internationally or in the Australian space, is how little attention is paid to gender and location (Kalnins & Williams, 2014). Through this book we are hoping to redress this oversight and start a conversation where applying a gender lens to regional entrepreneurship is normalised.

Entrepreneurship

Entrepreneurship is a contested concept, with a diversity of definitions evolving with consequent impacts on the measures used (Justo, De Castro, & Maydeu-Olivares, 2008; Venkataraman, 1997). For instance, there is dispute about whether those firms started for the purpose of self-employment should be included in the definition of entrepreneurship or whether the baseline for entrepreneurship should be set as those firms where value creation and the expectation of future growth hold. This distinction has gendered implications as women businesses have traditionally been more likely to be non-employing than men’s businesses. While some hold that small business is not a defining characteristic of entrepreneurship (Shepherd, Williams, & Patzelt, 2014), we think such a ruling should be relaxed when it comes to a regional context. Reflecting the definition used by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), the composition of our local economies and the relatively smaller size of businesses in regional communities, we have opted for the most inclusive definition, which does include non-employing businesses. It allows for the ‘average’ entrepreneur, not just the ‘ambitious’ entrepreneur (Stam, 2015).

We take a very broad definition of entrepreneurship as ‘any activity that makes a difference in the marketplace’ (Office of the Chief Economist, 2015). Entrepreneurial opportunities occur because different people perceive the value of opportunities differently. These opportunities can be leveraged through start-ups or through existing firms doing something new. Entrepreneurship is about finding the right match between market opportunity and the capabilities and passion of the business owner (Office of the Chief Economist, 2015). Entrepreneurship research has focused broadly on the development of smaller firms and more narrowly on the founding and success of firms that are introducing new products or services to the market (Busentitz, Gomez, & Spencer, 2000).

There has been a blurring of the boundaries between the fields of small and family business and entrepreneurship (Aldrich & Ruef, 2018). Many studies reinforce the notion that real entrepreneurship means the ‘ambitious entrepreneur’ (Stam, 2015), who starts a business with lots of funding from external investors, scaling up rapidly and then taking the venture public (Pahnke & Welter, 2019). But as Aldrich and Ruef (2018) point out, the odds of any start-up following this trajectory are very low even in Silicon Valley, the most iconic of entrepreneurial regions. It seems it is the case internationally that ‘regardless of their intention, most entrepreneurs create short-lived ventures’ (Aldrich & Ruef, 2018, p. 462) and are often drawing on family resources (Aldrich & Cliff, 2003; Rogoff & Heck, 2003).

The blurring of the entrepreneurship and small business fields can be understood through the notion of innovation. Being less constrained by rigid organisation structures, established routines, and lengthy decision-making processes often found in larger organisations, smaller firms may be swifter in spotting new market trends, more responsive to changes in customer needs, and more efficient in coming up with novel solutions, and so demonstrate entrepreneurial activity without necessarily being start-ups. In exploring regional entrepreneurship, we found this was the reality for firms operating within the regional communities in which we focused. The adaptability of established small businesses to changing consumer expectations, particularly with respect to technology supported solutions, exemplifies entrepreneurship in action.

Social Entrepreneurship

The literature on entrepreneurship commonly distinguishes between traditional business entrepreneurship and social entrepreneurship. The traditional entrepreneur is characterised as taking risks to develop their business for personal gain, and is very closely tied to the masculine stereotype (Bruni, Gherardi, & Poggio, 2004). Social entrepreneurship has been broadly conceptualised as covering two key components: an overarching social mission and entrepreneurial creativity (Corner & Ho, 2010). The opportunities for so...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Front Matter
• 1. Setting the Scene
• 2. How Does Australia Rate?
• 3. Australian Entrepreneurship: Distinguishing by Region and Gender
• 4. Setting the Scene for the Bioregions
• 5. Place-Based Entrepreneurs
• 6. Nascent Firms
• 7. Established Growing Firms
• 8. Established Plateaued Firms
• 9. Doing Entrepreneurship in Regional Communities
• Back Matter