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assumption that any growth is good, responsible growth. We also know that noncore
regions need tailor-made entrepreneurship policies on account of their peculiar conditions including high factor costs and remoteness (Anderson 2000). Our research
indicates that noncore regions also benefit from entrepreneurship policies which
support an overarching set of wellbeing goals. Wellbeing offers an end game for
other contextual features advocated in the literature to support entrepreneurship in
small towns including SME innovation and R&D, firm clusters, knowledge providers and innovation support institutions (Toedtling and Kaufmann 2001: 1215).
Attending to wellbeing shifts the focus of communities away from just economic
development to also build their long-term resilience through other components of
wellbeing such as psychological, spiritual, cultural and social. This wider set of
wellbeing components helps buffer noncore communities from the ups and downs
of economic cycles. Despite its increasing academic interest and movements
towards measuring the wellbeing of nations, the concept of wellbeing is yet to make
its mark on understanding sustainable development through entrepreneurship. The
concept is mentioned by development scholars, but existing wellbeing literature is
inadequately consulted, leaving the term to mis-specified use. Yet, when adequately
conceptualised, a multidimensional concept such as wellbeing can help to guide
how communities use entrepreneurship to create more balanced communities and
avoid negative externalities that can come from a failure to understand and consider
all aspects of wellbeing. We thus wish to explore how wellbeing may be used to
guide sustainable development through entrepreneurship.
In the next section, we review the concept of wellbeing and the two development
strategies of interest: industry-centred and local entrepreneurship. Our discussion
highlights how wellbeing offers a different evaluative framework for assessing the
merits of different sustainable community development approaches. We then outline our methodology, including a justification for a comparative theory-building
case study approach. Empirical evidence and analysis follow, illustrating how a
wellbeing-centric approach led to better community outcomes compared with more
industry-based approaches. The following section then abstracts from the case analysis to distil key theoretical variables demarcating industry-based and wellbeingcentric approaches including analysis of their respective benefits and limitations.
Theoretical and practical implications of an entrepreneurship for community wellbeing approach are presented before concluding the paper.
13.2 Literature Review
13.2.1 Multidimensional Wellbeing
The concept of wellbeing has gained parlance in numerous disciplines such as psychology, sociology, economics, anthropology and political science in order to capture the multiple components that make up quality of life (Gasper 2004; Gough
et al. 2007; McGregor 2007; Seligman 2011; Stiglitz et al. 2010). In policy circles
I. B. Franco and L. Newey
assumption that any growth is good, responsible growth. We also know that noncore
regions need tailor-made entrepreneurship policies on account of their peculiar conditions including high factor costs and remoteness (Anderson 2000). Our research
indicates that noncore regions also benefit from entrepreneurship policies which
support an overarching set of wellbeing goals. Wellbeing offers an end game for
other contextual features advocated in the literature to support entrepreneurship in
small towns including SME innovation and R&D, firm clusters, knowledge providers and innovation support institutions (Toedtling and Kaufmann 2001: 1215).
Attending to wellbeing shifts the focus of communities away from just economic
development to also build their long-term resilience through other components of
wellbeing such as psychological, spiritual, cultural and social. This wider set of
wellbeing components helps buffer noncore communities from the ups and downs
of economic cycles. Despite its increasing academic interest and movements
towards measuring the wellbeing of nations, the concept of wellbeing is yet to make
its mark on understanding sustainable development through entrepreneurship. The
concept is mentioned by development scholars, but existing wellbeing literature is
inadequately consulted, leaving the term to mis-specified use. Yet, when adequately
conceptualised, a multidimensional concept such as wellbeing can help to guide
how communities use entrepreneurship to create more balanced communities and
avoid negative externalities that can come from a failure to understand and consider
all aspects of wellbeing. We thus wish to explore how wellbeing may be used to
guide sustainable development through entrepreneurship.
In the next section, we review the concept of wellbeing and the two development
strategies of interest: industry-centred and local entrepreneurship. Our discussion
highlights how wellbeing offers a different evaluative framework for assessing the
merits of different sustainable community development approaches. We then outline our methodology, including a justification for a comparative theory-building
case study approach. Empirical evidence and analysis follow, illustrating how a
wellbeing-centric approach led to better community outcomes compared with more
industry-based approaches. The following section then abstracts from the case analysis to distil key theoretical variables demarcating industry-based and wellbeingcentric approaches including analysis of their respective benefits and limitations.
Theoretical and practical implications of an entrepreneurship for community wellbeing approach are presented before concluding the paper.
13.2 Literature Review
13.2.1 Multidimensional Wellbeing
The concept of wellbeing has gained parlance in numerous disciplines such as psychology, sociology, economics, anthropology and political science in order to capture the multiple components that make up quality of life (Gasper 2004; Gough
et al. 2007; McGregor 2007; Seligman 2011; Stiglitz et al. 2010). In policy circles
I. B. Franco and L. Newey