ABSTRACT
Building on our book, Toward Entrepreneurial Community Development: Leaping Cultural and Leadership Boundaries (Fortunato & Clevenger, 2017b), this book aims to provide accessible, applied examples that embody the theories, principles, and processes discussed in our first theory-based book. Relying on a diversity of narratives from a wide range of entrepreneurial communities and organizations, this book presents a collection of case studies and field research that take the reader inside the minds of leaders who are working to empower entrepreneurs and build entrepreneurial ecosystems and entrepreneurial communities—sometimes from scratch. The book features data from recent field studies as well as stories from entrepreneurs, development agencies, entrepreneurial support and assistance organizations, governments, academicians, and involved citizens and local leaders in their quest to make their communities more entrepreneurial. The book presents an analytic frame through which the case studies can be cross-analyzed, providing “meta-guidelines” for pursuing a broad range of strategies for supporting local entrepreneurial action. Our goal is to make academic work accessible outside of higher education. Each chapter uses high-quality, relevant academic citations—usually available only through subscriptions and firewalls—to anchor key ideas from the robust work of academics from around the world.
