Community Entrepreneurs : Networking for Local Development

In the face of structural economic changes in Western industrialized countries, ensuring the survival of communities requires local mobilization. Using the example of Sweden, the present research focuses on the initiation and management of local efforts for economic development and argues that local mobilization calls for "community entrepreneurs." Community entrepreneurs are those who facilitate entrepreneurial events rather than promoting the individual business ventures. They bridge business and community values and practices by making the individual would-be entrepreneurs aware of how their capabilities as members of the local community can be turned into business ventures, and by providing the emotional commitment needed for action. Socioeconomic networks are very crucial organizational devices in community entrepreneurship. A case study of a small Swedish community of Maleras illustrates the argument that the most fundamental mission of the community entrepreneur is to develop and maintain a socioeconomic network as a resource pool for autonomous entrepreneurs. At the end of the 1970s, the town's dedicated community entrepreneur, Mats Jonasson, began to vitalize the elaborate social networks by linking the few existing local businessmen and other community members, ex-residents, and cosmopolitan immigrants with entrepreneurial talents, as well as by approaching banks, local authorities and various organizations. As a result, over a period of five years, the number of companies and the number of locally employed had more than doubled in Maleras, the glassworks returned to local ownership, and the population increased. The research further examines the differences in sections of the community and the environments on which autonomous and community entrepreneurs focus. Two main empirical sources are used to examine those differences: one survey concerning would-be and new independent entrepreneurs in different regions of Sweden, and another survey concerning community entrepreneurs in a nationwide study. The most striking finding is that networking is the most crucial organizing vehicle in entrepreneurship, and that it is even more important to community entrepreneurs than to autonomous entrepreneurs. One implication is that the increasing number of local projects led by community entrepreneurs indicates a need to bridge commercial and social entrepreneurial endeavors. (AT)