The Role of Community in Venturing for a Better World Together

Abstract

Scholars have argued that any entrepreneurial attempts to address societal issues may fall short without incorporating the role of community as an endogenous component to venturing, as opposed to treating community as an exogenous contextual variable. A growing but disparate body of entrepreneurship research centers specifically on the role of community, and has explored the involvement of community as actors, recipients, or stakeholders in entrepreneurial outcomes. However, research progress is hampered by both the ambiguity surrounding the definition of community, and how community is engaged in the research process. Building on the idea of the community as a stakeholder with constant presence but varying involvement in the entrepreneurial process, we advocate viewing community as a passive or active embedded partner in the entrepreneurial process. Using this agentic view of community, the speakers in our symposium discuss approaches to conduct research at the intersection of community and entrepreneurship to “create a better world together”. The symposium will close with a brainstorming session regarding future research questions designed to elevate and refine scholarship at the intersection of community, entrepreneurship, and positive social change.