Rural entrepreneurship : individual or collective phenomena?

• Autor(a) principal: Dinis, Anabela
• Data de Publicação: 2002
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10400.5/9953
• topic: Entrepreneurship; Rural; Networks

The creation of firms is often mentioned as an effective strategy for revitalising rural areas and to attain a sustainable development. However, in these areas, entrepreneurship is particularly difficult since firms face greater limitations concerning human, material and financial resources when compared with urban and more developed areas. In literature, the entrepreneur is usually pointed out as being as a key element in the creation and development of firms, but the importance of the socio-cultural context in entrepreneurship promotion is also being more and more recognised. In fact, several studies show that (1) successful economies are supported and governed by strong social institutions of a non-market character, (2) often what holds firms is the existence of a supportive socio-economic structure characterised by specific social and cultural vestiges. This study intends to highlight that entrepreneurial process has to be seen and analysed as both an individual and collective phenomena where economic rationality is mixed with other (ir)rationalities. It also means that economic development is more probable and sustainable in a context of socio-cultural development.