 Situating community enterprise: A theoretical explorationPeter Somerville and Gerard McElwee Entrepreneurship & Regional Development, 2011, vol. 23, issue 5-6, 317-330 Abstract: This paper argues that enterprises can be understood primarily in terms of their social bases and that the social base of community enterprise lies in community of some kind. It reviews current conceptualizations in this area such as ‘community-based enterprise’ (CBE) and ‘social enterprise’, and argues that CBE is only one form of community enterprise. Community entrepreneurs are understood in terms of their position on a continuum of community participation, as economic/social/political activists, and community enterprise is explained largely in terms of the balance of social capital functions served by its overall activity. The relationship between membership of a community enterprise and membership of a community is explored, and represented in terms of two criteria: the pool from which enterprise members are drawn and the rule by which such members are selected from the pool. This paper illustrates its arguments in relation to two English community enterprises, Coin Street Community Builders based in London and The Eldonians based in Liverpool. Date: 2011 Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:entreg:v:23:y:2011:i:5-6:p:317-330 Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from DOI: 10.1080/08985626.2011.580161 Access Statistics for this article Entrepreneurship & Regional Development is currently edited by Professor Alistair Anderson More articles in Entrepreneurship & Regional Development from Taylor & Francis Journals |
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