Entrepreneurship as boundary work : Deviating from and belonging to community

Abstract

Entrepreneurship is usually seen as a solution to problems in community development – through new firms, new industries and community mobilization, stagnating regions and cities are expected to return to growth and prosperity (Cornwall, 1998). While this solution is almost undisputed, the question of what entrepreneurship is and how it emerges often remains unanswered or neglected (Spinosa et al., 1997). There is also an underpinning positive assumption that all new firms or entrepreneurial acts are good for any local community and that they are well received by the locals (Welsch and Kuhns, 2002). Moreover, it is said that industries should be built on local resources, competencies and culture – the question is how we can develop our town and local area out of our existing traditions, culture and habits. We can find this ideal of the embedded industrial cluster throughout the world. In France there are different wine and food districts, there are US cities where all activities are built around car manufacturing (e.g. Detroit), there are regions inhabited by numerous glass and crystal manufacturers (Smaland in Sweden, Bohemia in the Czech Republic). There are the famous local specializations of northern Italy with their emphasis on civil society, not to mention the notorious US case of Silicon Valley (Saxenian, 2000). We have thus many examples of clusters where traditions and cultures are part of how to and what to produce, and where people have been able to construct affluent communities out from their local culture. Behind the visible products and local specialities, the inhabitants of these areas have together created strong regional cultures that support and maintain certain behaviours, identities and social relationships – enabling but also limiting individuals in relation to tradition. In less fortunate areas, economic activities are likely to be more diverse (Welsch and Kuhns, 2002), but still performed in a close and harmonical relation to the