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In order to advance the merits of a wellbeing-based approach, we compare and
contrast two leading methods of sustainable community development in terms of
their outcomes for community wellbeing. On the one hand, resource-rich towns can
place their hopes in the hands of multinationals who foster a local economy through
centring it on a key industry such as mining, agriculture or tourism. On the other
hand, towns may instead base their development less on any one industry and more
through the variety offered by local entrepreneurship.
Our research objective is to build new theory about the links between sustainable
community development, entrepreneurship and community wellbeing. New theory
is needed because multidimensional wellbeing has not been used as an outcome
variable with which to assess relative merits or understand the intricacies of how
development approaches achieve synergies or fragmentation between the varying
components of wellbeing.
Two case studies in the resource-rich but underdeveloped Colombian mining
regions of Antioquia and Risaralda offer research sites for a comparison between
economic-focused industry-centred approaches and more wellbeing-centric
approaches to sustainable community development. Both are noncore regions,
defined as “outside the principal metropolitan areas” (Lagendijk and Lorentzen
2007: 459). We find that the more wellbeing-centric approach adopted in Risaralda
led to better overall community wellbeing outcomes across the eight components
compared with Antioquia. Moreover, the latter’s entrepreneurship and development
were centred largely on the fortunes of the mining industry thus making its resilience susceptible to the vagaries of the mining cycle. By contrast, in Risaralda,
entrepreneurship and sustainable community development were more focused on
local empowerment and leadership to chart a direction of development where mining was only a part and not the core.
Our main contribution is to advance empirical evidence for an eight-component
model of wellbeing as an approach to sustainable community development through
entrepreneurship and towards the achievement of SDG 12 (UN 2018). Consistent
with research showing a diminishing returns effect between economic wealth and
life satisfaction (Easterlin 1974; Gasper 2005; Patrizii et al. 2017), the eightcomponent model focuses on a wider range of elements that regions and towns must
pay attention to for the life fulfilment of their populations and responsible production of companies operating in the region. Achieving outcomes on these eight wellbeing components requires a mix of entrepreneurship types within a community
including commercial, social and institutional (Baumgartner et al. 2013). This broad
wellbeing perspective contributes to that emerging literature focused on more “harmonic” (Misoczky 2011) and local entrepreneurship-based (McMullen 2011;
McWade 2012; Peredo and Chrisman 2006) approaches to development that aim to
create a broader range of value types in towns (Dana et al. 2014; Gray et al. 2014;
Huggins and Thompson 2014; Korsgaard and Anderson 2011).
Wellbeing thus serves as an overarching goal around which communities can
develop entrepreneurship strategies. This shifts the focus of noncore regional strategies beyond just economic growth and product/service innovation to consider how
these strategies affect other components of wellbeing. This also questions the
13 SDG 12 Responsible Consumption and Production
In order to advance the merits of a wellbeing-based approach, we compare and
contrast two leading methods of sustainable community development in terms of
their outcomes for community wellbeing. On the one hand, resource-rich towns can
place their hopes in the hands of multinationals who foster a local economy through
centring it on a key industry such as mining, agriculture or tourism. On the other
hand, towns may instead base their development less on any one industry and more
through the variety offered by local entrepreneurship.
Our research objective is to build new theory about the links between sustainable
community development, entrepreneurship and community wellbeing. New theory
is needed because multidimensional wellbeing has not been used as an outcome
variable with which to assess relative merits or understand the intricacies of how
development approaches achieve synergies or fragmentation between the varying
components of wellbeing.
Two case studies in the resource-rich but underdeveloped Colombian mining
regions of Antioquia and Risaralda offer research sites for a comparison between
economic-focused industry-centred approaches and more wellbeing-centric
approaches to sustainable community development. Both are noncore regions,
defined as “outside the principal metropolitan areas” (Lagendijk and Lorentzen
2007: 459). We find that the more wellbeing-centric approach adopted in Risaralda
led to better overall community wellbeing outcomes across the eight components
compared with Antioquia. Moreover, the latter’s entrepreneurship and development
were centred largely on the fortunes of the mining industry thus making its resilience susceptible to the vagaries of the mining cycle. By contrast, in Risaralda,
entrepreneurship and sustainable community development were more focused on
local empowerment and leadership to chart a direction of development where mining was only a part and not the core.
Our main contribution is to advance empirical evidence for an eight-component
model of wellbeing as an approach to sustainable community development through
entrepreneurship and towards the achievement of SDG 12 (UN 2018). Consistent
with research showing a diminishing returns effect between economic wealth and
life satisfaction (Easterlin 1974; Gasper 2005; Patrizii et al. 2017), the eightcomponent model focuses on a wider range of elements that regions and towns must
pay attention to for the life fulfilment of their populations and responsible production of companies operating in the region. Achieving outcomes on these eight wellbeing components requires a mix of entrepreneurship types within a community
including commercial, social and institutional (Baumgartner et al. 2013). This broad
wellbeing perspective contributes to that emerging literature focused on more “harmonic” (Misoczky 2011) and local entrepreneurship-based (McMullen 2011;
McWade 2012; Peredo and Chrisman 2006) approaches to development that aim to
create a broader range of value types in towns (Dana et al. 2014; Gray et al. 2014;
Huggins and Thompson 2014; Korsgaard and Anderson 2011).
Wellbeing thus serves as an overarching goal around which communities can
develop entrepreneurship strategies. This shifts the focus of noncore regional strategies beyond just economic growth and product/service innovation to consider how
these strategies affect other components of wellbeing. This also questions the
13 SDG 12 Responsible Consumption and Production