Page 42 - 1-Entrepreneurship and Local Economic Development by Norman Walzer (z-lib.org)

Entrepreneurship as Rural Economic Development Policy 31

nical assistance, capital access, networks, and entrepreneurial culture in
self-defined multicounty rural regions. There were 182 submissions from
rural regions in 47 states with more than 2,000 organizations directly in-
volved in the process as part of collaboratives.

Principle 3. Assets
The third principle is that entrepreneurship strategy must be assets-based.
Although Kretzman and McKnight (1993) published their groundbreaking
and widely adopted and adapted guide in the early 1990s to encourage
communities to stop thinking in terms of deficits and shortcomings and
start focusing on their assets and potentials, it still remains a challenge for
many rural regions to identify and accept that they may have real assets that
can yield entrepreneurial opportunities.
Nevertheless, the building blocks for competitive rural regions must be
their assets that can be leveraged for vitalization efforts. There are many dif-
ferent categorizations of such assets. For instance, Flora and Flora (2004) re-
fer to seven types of capital—cultural, social, human, political, natural, fi-
nancial, and built capital—which they define as a resource invested to
create new resources, and which can be identified in rural communities.
The policy challenge is which of these disparate assets can be translated into
entrepreneurial opportunities and what is the most effective means of do-
ing so.
For many scholars and observers, the main drivers of regional economies
are to be found primarily in large metropolitan centers or at least close to
centers of knowledge investment and creation. For instance, David Au-
dretsch (2005), a leading entrepreneurship theorist, suggests that entrepre-
neurship will be greater and will lead to higher levels of economic growth
in geographically delimited areas around sources of knowledge spillover
such as research universities and technology companies.
Much depends, however, on the extent to which these spillovers present
opportunities attractive to entrepreneurs and to the strength of the entre-
preneurial capital available. This approach supports Florida’s (2005) ideas
mentioned earlier about the concentration of creativity around certain cen-
ters, but it does not necessarily preclude rural participation through land
grant universities and colleges or certain research institutions.
A new study that recasts the Florida (2005) Creative Class formulation
for rural America (McGranahan and Wojan 2006) supports the notion that
creativity in both urban and rural contexts is indeed a factor in economic
growth, and that certain rural characteristics can attract workers in creative
occupations. Amenity-based rural development strategies not only attract
tourists, vacation home residents, and retirees, but also creative workers
who see outdoor amenities as enhancing their quality of life.