Entrepreneurship and Community Culture: A Place-Based Study of Their Interdependency

Cultural factors are often absent from analyses of economic change and development, divorcing the nature of social places from the economic spaces within which they are situated. However, the cultural community traits of places may influence the prevailing entrepreneurial culture of these places in the form, for example, of entrepreneurial capacity. As a means of examining the missing link between placed-based community and economy, this study establishes a number of community culture measures and assesses how these are associated with place-based measures of entrepreneurship. The study finds significant links between community culture and attitudes to entrepreneurship at the local level. For instance, it is found that caring and more feminine attitudes and activities are negatively associated with stronger local entrepreneurial cultures. Observance of social rules, social cohesion and embracement of work and education, on the other hand, are positively associated with stronger, more enterprising business cultures, suggesting that a cohesive community increases the entrepreneurial confidence of individuals. It is concluded that community cultural characteristics such as social cohesion represent a potential strength which policymakers can potentially enhance as an economic development tool to stimulate entrepreneurship.