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I thought we would kick off our BLOG with a discussion on building entrepreneurial communities.

A group of authors examine the concept of building entrepreneurial communities as a strategy for community and economic development. The authors define an entrepreneurial community as one in which everyone (residents, business people and politicians and esp. government officials) think and act entrepreneurially.

Is it possible for an entire community to act in entrepreneurial fashion? The authors point to the following kinds of behaviors or activities that distinguish a community as entrepreneurial.

• First, entrepreneurial communities possess a critical mass of entrepreneurs actively engaged in capturing new market opportunities (the key point: capturing new market opportunities).
• Second, a group of entrepreneurs constitute a distinct and recognizable community within the community and third the community is open to change and invests in conditions necessary to encourage entrepreneurs.

Community can act entrepreneurially but it requires leadership from the stakeholders to create a vision and the capacity to build partnerships between the private and public sectors. Here is something to consider.

Building entrepreneurial communities is particularly relevant to Universities and their host communities in three key ways.

• First, Universities can facilitate entrepreneurial activity via its academic programs where students and residents can hatch new ideas and help build plans for new enterprises.
• Second, Universities are in unique position to lead a community as an “advocate for change" that can help transform the university and its host community.
• Third, as a transformational agent the University can help can create new partnerships that can build competitive advantages and create new places of value.
  

Tell me what you think? Can UNC facilitate an entrepreneurial community? If not why? If so, how.

Building Entrepreneurial Communities: The Appropriate Role of Enterprise Development Activities written by Lichtenstein, G.A., Lyons, T.S., and Kutzhanova, N. in the Jan 1 2004 issue of the Journal of the Community Development Society.