Page 274 - 1-Entrepreneurship and Local Economic Development by Norman Walzer (z-lib.org)

Getting Started in Community-Based Entrepreneurship 263

a partial picture because it does not provide an understanding of what those
who did not come or did not stay could have used. Practitioners should re-
view and evaluate services offered to international migrants, who are the
source of population growth in many areas. Immigrants are more entrepre-
neurial than people raised in the United States (Henderson, Low, and
Weiler, chapter 4; International Migration Policy Program 1997).
7. Are entrepreneurs counseled on appropriate ways to use social capital and
avoid social capital traps (Kayne, chapter 8; Levitte 2004)? Social capital is a
term used to describe feelings of connectedness between individuals and is
beneficial when individuals use it to make business connections; however,
when local ties are too strong, social capital can prevent businesses from
seeking support from external sources. Furthermore, as Levitte (2004)
demonstrates, sometimes jealousy or other negative feelings can interfere
with productive economic relationships to the detriment of the entire com-
munity. To assess this characteristic in a community, one can ask service
providers and entrepreneurs themselves whether people go outside the com-
munity when they cannot meet needs locally and whether they continue to
do business with individuals they do not like if it makes business sense.
8. Are knowledge clusters (people who know a great deal about a type of prod-
uct, a specific part of the production and marketing process, or how to support en-
trepreneurs) identified and fostered (Jackson 2004)? Important to emphasize
here is that knowledge clusters can cut across sectors, and great potential for
mutually beneficial improvements can come from such exchanges. For ex-
ample, individuals who handle advertising for diverse businesses might
learn more from each other than a network of used car dealer public rela-
tions departments. The latter would compete on many levels and thus be
less willing to share information, and would not have the diversity of expe-
rience within the former type of group. Determining whether these clusters
exist locally would take the form of questions such as “Do you ever get to-
gether with a group to help figure out better ways to do business?” “Tell me
a little about the group.”
9. Are knowledge clusters engaged in intercluster learning and exchange (Hen-
derson, Low, and Weiler, chapter 4; Jackson 2004)? Continuing the adver-
tising example, the people in this cluster might benefit from knowing what
changes are occurring in information technologies. So for the assessment,
follow-up questions might include, “Does that group ever compare notes
with other groups?” “Tell me about those groups.”
10. Does the community deliberately foster growth of leaders who can play a pos-
itive role in the development process (Muske and Woods 2004)? Most often,
this approach takes the form of leadership development programs regularly
offered by Chambers and county extension offices. It is important to recruit
diverse individuals into these programs to foster development of deep local
networks.