An Exploration of the Role of Embeddedness in Social Value Creation in Three Different Community Contexts
This dissertation explores community belonging through the lens of social capital, and examines how social capital functions within the community to create social value. There are three papers that serve as the pillars of this exploration.
A Mixed-Methods Study of How University Museums Use Outreach to Build Community Relationships and Deliver Value to the University
The first examines mixed embeddedness in a university community. This mixed-methods study examines how universities use social capital movement via their university museums as agents which develop community embeddedness in a multiple of avenues through inreach and outreach programs.
Anatomy of Entrepreneurship: Using Key Competencies to Drive Social Capital Acquisition and Develop Social Entrepreneurship Practices in MBA Education.
The second study examines another mixed embeddedness situation in academic entrepreneurial communities. This content analysis study investigates how social entrepreneurship (SE) key competencies are leveraged to drive social capital development for students in graduate SE programs and affirm a set of SE practices.
Between the Mountains and Plains: Migration, Embeddedness and Belonging among Indigenous Entrepreneurs in Taiwan
Abstract
Purpose – Indigenous entrepreneurship (IE) is generally considered to emerge within culturally and geographically monolithic communities, with academic literature presupposing those communities are stationary. The purpose of this paper is to challenges this monolithic interpretation or stationary model of IE by investigating how migration and mobility affect IE.
Design/methodology/approach – This paper draws on an instrumental case study of Swalrawdru, a pseudonymous Rukai mountain community in southern Taiwan. Eight research participants were identified, who migrated from the mountains to the cities in the plain when they were young and, after some time, moved back to the mountains to establish a business. Their entrepreneurship is examined through the use of a short survey and semi-structured interviews. We analyse the experiences of these Rukai entrepreneurs to consider the ways in which mountain-plain mobility affects entrepreneurial aspirations and outcomes.
Findings – Our findings indicate that migration and mobitity affect IE in intricate ways. We show how entrepreneurs’ embeddedness in mountain and plain settings provides the experiences, resources, and connections to set up business ventures, while their belongingness to the Indigenous community and place serve as motivation and inspiration for entrepreneurs to move into particular—culturally defined—niches.
Originality – This paper is among the first to investigate the role of migration in IE, thus challenging the dominant monolithic model. Additional contributions include a rebalancing of the geographical focus of IE scholarship to East Asia and a call for more cross-fertilization between entrepreneurship sub-fields like IE and migrant and social entrepreneurship.