SUPPORTING RURAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP: INSTITUTIONAL AND LOCAL STRATEGIES FOR COMMUNITY AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

Abstract

Rural communities are increasingly faced with complex challenges that are global in their scope and implications – challenges requiring innovative new solutions. As many governments, including the United States, wrestle with macro solutions to local problems through policy discussions (or policy inaction), community-based entrepreneurship offers one potential solution for solving local problems and meeting local needs. In this brief article, we make three central arguments about community entrepreneurship. First, we argue that entrepreneurship is one promising strategy for rural development, as rural industrial organization has become more consolidated, capital market-driven, and mobile – often isolating rural citizens and workers from decision-making processes that affect their livelihoods and communities. Second, we argue that local innovation and entrepreneurship are mediated by local social and cultural institutions, both formal and informal, that affect how entrepreneurial knowledge is used in rural societies. And third, we argue that innovation and entrepreneurship development can be supported by broader community development efforts and produce benefits that go well beyond job creation and local revenue growth. We conclude with an overview of a promising new hybrid community and entrepreneurship development strategy, the Intentional Innovation Community.