'Toward a Model for Developing and Sustaining Successful Rural Entrepreneurial Communities.'

One dominant theme that continuously appears to emerge from supranational and national reports is that, in order for rural communities to surmount the detrimental effects to its socio-economic milieu (caused mainly by globalization and agricultural policy reforms) emphasis must be directed at diversification and growth in the non-farm rural economy (Commission of the European Communities, 1997; CAP Rural Development Plan, 2007-2013).  Although r ural entrepreneurship has been acknowledged in academic and government circles as a key driver in rural socio-economic development (Irish Rural Development Programme 2007-2013; Cap Rural Development Plan 2007-2013) and there has been a number of research calls to explore how rural under-development can be addressed through rural entrepreneurship (Wortman, Jr. 1990; Jack and Anderson 2002; Stathopoulou et al. 2004), few research agendas have addressed this issue.  Consequently, the knowledge-base concerning rural entrepreneurship is insubstantial, representing a ‘green-field’ for interested academics and researches.

A review of the extant literature indicates that most entrepreneurship research tends to centralize the individual entrepreneur, such as his/her traits and characteristics, as opposed to entrepreneurship at a group level (Haugh and Pardy, 1999), which is considered in this proposed work to be the community level.  Further, even when rural entrepreneurship is the primary research aim, the tendency is to focus more on the larger picture of rural sustainable development or regional development rather than at the local, community level (cf. Efstratoglou and Psaltopoulos, 1999).  The foregoing highlights that there is a gap in the research literature concerning the role and functions of an entrepreneur’s socio-economic network and the affect of the rural context on the development and sustainability of rural entrepreneurship.  Recently, the factors and variables influencing entrepreneurship in local rural communities have been analyzed (Hugh and Pardy, 1999; Jack and Anderson, 2002), thereby providing this proposed piece of work a knowledge-base on which to build.  Modeling the sequence of events and interactions among local actors and other agents that have unfolded over time, to shape, modify, and develop a sustainable rural entrepreneurship community is the core objective of this work.  The motivation for this proposed study is two-fold:  first, to remedy what is seen as a paucity of research on the evolution of rural entrepreneurial communities (Stathopoulou et al. 2004) and, second, to inform policy makers/implementers on how rural development can be successfully achieved.  It is perceived that this research agenda will contribute significantly to both the entrepreneurial research stream and to research on sustainable rural development. 

After reviewing the literature it is quite obvious that most research focuses on individual or regional development as opposed to a group or community level. This is a significant gap in the research, thus the purpose of this paper is to produce new insights by taking a network view of the entrepreneurial process, most particularly how the rural context and entrepreneur’s social embeddedness within the local community both inhibits and enhances the entrepreneurial process. By synthesizing and analyzing the literature from a network perspective it will be possible to access the research process in the area and also access our understanding of the factors that inhibit and facilitate rural entrepreneurs. Based on the evidence reviewed, observations are drawn for future theoretical and empirical development in the field of rural entrepreneurial communities.