Building a “community co-operative” at Hill Holt Wood

This article documents the business history of Hill Holt Wood (HHW), a community-run social enterprise based in rural Lincolnshire. It aims to shed light on the issues and obstacles associated with developing a rural enterprise into a ‘community co-operative’ (Somerville, 2007). To this end, face-to-face interviews were conducted with the venture’s founder over a period of approximately five years. It was found that the motivation and persistence of the founder, in addition to key support networks that can be drawn upon when required, were critical to the success of this community-controlled enterprise. The article concludes with a discussion of the future prospects for HHW and similar ‘community co-operatives’

Polish entrepreneurs in Glasgow and Entrepreneurial Opportunity Structure

Purpose To develop a modelised representation of the concept of opportunity structures for Ethnic Minority Entrepreneurs (EMEs) in Glasgow, Scotland, that incorporates the different demand and supply side dimensions influencing entrepreneurial activity. Design/methodology/approach An appropriate qualitative research design was implemented in order to capture and understand the influence of contextual dimensions on entrepreneurial behaviour of Polish EMEs in Glasgow. As part of the abductive and reflective process of the research, 21 semi-structured interviews were carried out in with Polish EMEs who are sole-owners of businesses. Findings By contextualising ethnic minority entrepreneurship, the paper reveals the crucial and ambivalent role played by the community (for resource mobilisation and as the primary market) and by Polish EMEs' perception of the opportunity structure, on their entrepreneurial behaviour. Moreover, it highlights the importance of the household as a contextual dimension on entrepreneurial decision-making among those Polish entrepreneurs in Glasgow. Practical implications Provides a comprehensive and operational model of opportunity structure for EMEs which can be used an operational tool for both scholars in the field as well as by policy makers. The proposed model constitutes a framework for analysing the influence of different contextual dimensions on EMEs' entrepreneurial behaviour. Originality/value The contribution is the provision of an original tool to enable further systematic comparative approaches while conducting research on EMEs across different communities and localities. Keywords : Polish Entrepreneurs, Opportunity Structure, Contextualised Entrepreneurship, Ethnic Minority Entrepreneurship

Illegal diversification in the farming community?

Traditionally, farmers enjoy high levels of social esteem. Like the entrepreneur, they are ascribed the twin status of hero and loner. However, not all farmers are paragons of virtue and some are dishonest. These are what we call ‘rogue’ farmers

Confronting social constructions of rural criminality: a case story on 'illegal pluriactivity' in the farming community.

The accepted social construction of the rural criminal is that of the (alien) urban marauder. In this social script the farmer is presented as the victim of crime. Traditionally, farmers enjoy high levels of social esteem and rarely are they vilified. This case story examines alternative income generating strategies from the margins of agriculture which include theft of animals and property; engaging in the illegal meat trade; trading in illegal medicines and wildlife and dog breeding. This case using ethnographic observation examines the activities of such individuals and documents the phenomenon of an indigenous rural criminal fraternity in Scotland

Wetland entrepreneurs: diversity in diversification in Zambian farming

Purpose This paper explores enterprise diversification amongst wetland farmers in Zambia as a way of reducing poverty and improving sustainability. It identifies ways in which such entrepreneurial activities can be supported and applied more widely. Method A qualitative study of Zambian farmers, based on a series of workshops and interviews held in Zambia with farmers and farm business advisers. Findings Despite adopting new technologies most farmers are restricted to the local market where their increased production holds down prices. However, a very small number of farmers are able to progress to production and marketing for markets in major urban centres hundreds of kilometres away, and considerably more are able to use the capital accumulated from wetland farming to diversify their household enterprises to reduce poverty and improve the sustainability and resilience of their livelihoods. Prior work No work has been undertaken in diversification strategies of Small scale farmers in Zambia

Conceptualising Animation in Rural Communities: The Village SOS Case

This paper introduces and discusses the concept of animatorship in relation to rural enterprise and development. At its simplest level, animatorship is the art of animating others to achieve their objectives. We develop and apply this concept to understanding community development and community enterprise, with a specific emphasis on rural communities. We present a descriptive, conceptual study of a new concept i.e. animation in the context of entrepreneurship. The fieldwork for this paper took the form of structured face-to-face interviews with community development workers in November-January 2015/2016. These workers actively stimulate, motivate and inspire others and orchestrate situations and people to bring about change through others, not merely doing things for them. They build environments and relationships in which people grow, directing and focusing energies to develop and empower people’s emotional and social lives and relationships through patient, open listening and group conversation

Critiquing the Inter-Disciplinary Literature on Food Fraud

The European Horsemeat Scandal of 2013 is a recent manifestation of the problem of ‘Food fraud’. It is important from a criminological perspective because it exists at the nexus between organized crime and bad business practice and is a contemporary example of criminal-entrepreneurship. From a practical perspective it is a pernicious criminal activity perpetuated by diverse organized-crime-groups, rogue-entrepreneurs and food-industry-insiders. It is a white-collar-crime committed in the commercial arena, across an extended international food-chain. Geographic and policy boundaries make it difficult to police. Although a high level of awareness of the fraud exists globally, there is a dearth of critical academic research into the phenomenon. The extant literature is spread thinly across various disciplinary silos. This essay by two Business School Scholars and a Food Scientist, discusses the need to develop a more critical, inter-disciplinary approach to developing appropriate theoretical frameworks

Barriers to the Development and Progress of Entrepreneurship in Rural Pakistan

Purpose: Focussing on entrepreneurs’ experiences inhibiting them from launching a business – at the micro level – the purpose of this paper is to identify issues that limit rural entrepreneurship in Pakistan and also, to identify the cultural, social, economic and religious traditions and settings that discourage entrepreneurship thus hindering economic development Design/methodology/approach: An ethnographic approach was used to obtain a picture of current problems and perspectives of rural inhabitants. Members of 84 families were interviewed. Findings: Religious, socioeconomic and structural forces play a significant role in suppressing social and cultural capital in rural areas of Pakistan, explaining the low level of entrepreneurship in these areas. Social and cultural capital requires a certain socioeconomic context for entrepreneurship to thrive. Originality/value: This study examines the determinants of very low levels of entrepreneurship in rural settings in the agro-based regions of interior Sindh, Pakistan; this contributes to the gap of understanding the context of rural entrepreneurs in agro-based economies. This study makes recommendations for policy makers to promote entrepreneurship in such areas

Refugee Subentrepreneurship – The Emergence of a Liquid Cage.

This article conceptualises refugees’ endeavours for upward social mobility through subentrepreneurship. Subentrepreneurship refers to various self-employment forms that are undeclared to relevant authorities to escape superimposed historical, temporal, spatial, institutional and social contexts, which constrain actors’ entrepreneurial activities. Using a mixed theoretical underpinning combining Mixed Embeddedness (ME) with Weber’s Iron Cage of Rationality (ICR), we signify liquidity of refugee subentrepreneurship, which is neither linear nor long-term rational. A liquid cage is envisaged to allow more freedom as refugees become embedded within intersections between transformative journeys and Constrained Institutional Contexts (CICs). This new theorising signifies a pronounced emphasis on agency whereby refugees cleverly contemplate implicit skills (i.e. unrecognised or downgraded skills), opportunities and processes to escape CICs. The article adds clarity as to how contexts become part of the production of entrepreneurial actions through two-way interactions that promote liquidity, enabling a strong foundation for future research exploring subentrepreneurship