Toward Entrepreneurial Community Development
Leaping Cultural and Leadership Boundaries
Routledge Studies in Entrepreneurship Series

Toward Entrepreneurial Community Development is about developing entrepreneurial communities, and goes beyond theories of the firm to demonstrate how local and regional society contributes in important ways to the vitality of entrepreneurs. The literature is rich with insights about leadership and culture within SMEs, and the behaviours and attitudes of their founders, founding teams, and managers. Since most of the attention in the entrepreneurship literature is focused on firms, we wish to explore everyone else: The social environment surrounding the entrepreneur, and how leadership and culture outside the firm can have pervasive effects on the business.

This book reaches across disciplinary boundaries, integrating and advancing knowledge on entrepreneurial community development. The book identifies actionable leadership strategies that can be used by literally anyone to help make a community or region a more culturally-supportive, interactive home for entrepreneurial minds. We draw from original research to compare high and low entrepreneurship communities, and present an emergent picture of how community-level actors can (or fail to) work together to support entrepreneurship in places that are culturally distant from the Silicon Valley (i.e., most places). Toward Entrepreneurial Community Development then offers techniques for entrepreneurial community leadership, including how to build lasting alliances, create an image, and harness the local culture for entrepreneurial advantage.

The result is a book that provides the reader with the latest advancements and techniques in entrepreneurship development in a straight-forward, readable format. No matter the reader, TowardEntrepreneurial Community Development demonstrates how anyone, in any position, can lead a local entrepreneurship movement starting anywhere, anytime.

1. An Introduction to Entrepreneurial Community Development

Michael W-P Fortunato and Morgan R. Clevenger

2. Perceptions of Entrepreneurs and Community: From Historical Roots to a Contemporary Kaleidoscope

Morgan R. Clevenger

3. Models of Entrepreneurial Community and Ecosystem Development

Michael W-P Fortunato

4. Understanding the Impact of Culture in Entrepreneurship

Nicole D. Breazeale and Ronald J. Hustedde

5. Transformational Leadership to Build an Entrepreneurial Community

Morgan R. Clevenger and Chao Miao

6. The Value and Process of Social Networking for Entrepreneurs

Morgan R. Clevenger, Michael W-P Fortunato, and Kathleen Houlihan

7. High- and Low-entrepreneurial Communities: A Multiple Case Study

Michael W-P Fortunato

8. Analysis of the Case Study Data: Considerations for Studying or Launching an Entrepreneurial Community or Ecosystem

Michael W-P Fortunato

9. Entrepreneurial Community Success: Psychological Characteristics, Experiences, and Identities

Ellen E. Newell

10. Leaping Cultural and Leadership Boundaries: Catalyzing Entrepreneurial Communities

Michael W-P Fortunato and Morgan R. Clevenger

• Michael W-P Fortunato is the Director of the Center for Rural Studies at Sam Houston State University
• Morgan Clevenger is an Assistant Professor at Sidhu School of Business, Wilkes University