Creating entrepreneurial communities: building community capacity for ecosystem development

Research on the economic impact of entrepreneurship makes the case for entrepreneur-focused economic development. Community economic development practitioners and policy-makers face the challenge of identifying and implementing the most promising strategies. Some community development researchers have argued effectively for an entrepreneurial development system, or ecosystem, approach as a way to build and grow a pipeline of entrepreneurial talent. Others document the importance of building community capacity as a prerequisite for the establishment of an effective ecosystem. This paper draws on field-based learning, primarily in Kansas and Australia, to develop the conceptual underpinnings for an approach to creating entrepreneurial communities that builds: (1) the capacity of the community to host and support an entrepreneurial ecosystem and (2) the capacity of entrepreneurs to grow themselves and their businesses in support of community economic development.