Index and Abstracts

Volume 11, Number 3
September 2006

Entrepreneurship in the Rainbow Nation: Affect of Cultural Values and ESE on Intentions
Boris Urban

Farmers as Entrepreneurs: Developing Competitive Skills
Gerard McElwee

Empowering Entrepreneurship Through Foresight and Innovation: Developing a Theoretical Framework for Empowerment in Enterprise Programs
Allan O’ Connor and Jose M. Ramos

Searching for Wortman’s Rural Economic Development Zones: A Case Study of Three Rural Electric Cooperatives
Kirk C. Heriot and Noel D. Campbell

Entrepreneurial Discovery by the Working Poor
James O. Fiet, Robert D. Nixon, Mahesh Gupta and Pankaj C. Patel

Entrepreneurship in the Rainbow Nation: Affect of Cultural Values and ESE on Intentions

Boris Urban

Because of South Africa's multicultural society, different cultural values were hypothesized to influence proclivity toward entrepreneurship across ethnic groups. Building on previous research conducted on ethnicity and entrepreneurship, selected findings were investigated to formulate hypotheses and contextualize the study. By adapting entrepreneurial intentions to reflect entrepreneurial self-efficacy (ESE) as a separate measure of feasibility to start a business, principal component analysis was conducted to verify the construct validity of the measures and internal consistency was established. The latest VSM 94 was used to capture the five dimensions of culture. ANOVA and Duncans multiple tests indicated some significant differences across ethnic groups, while correlation and multiple regression analysis demonstrated that it was the ESE beliefs rather than cultural values that influence intentions.

Farmers as Entrepreneurs: Developing Competitive Skills

Gerard McElwee

The aim of this literature review is to consider the main issues derived from studies published on the subject of farmers’ skills and entrepreneurial capacity to determine which topics have emerged as areas of research. This literature review analyzes the topics which have been the subject of farm entrepreneurship research and suggest that there are some limited emergent trends in the literature and that a number of key topics are receiving higher levels of attention than others: namely farm diversification and farmers’ enterprise skills. Farming is not a homogeneous sector; farmers operate in a tightly constrained and regulated, complex and multi-faceted environment, which acts as a significant barrier to entrepreneurial activity.

Empowering Entrepreneurship Through Foresight and Innovation: Developing a Theoretical Framework for Empowerment in Enterprise Programs

Allan O’ Connor and Jose M. Ramos

This study explores how education and development in the skills and knowledge of foresight, innovation and enterprise (FI and E) relate to the empowerment of young individuals with respect to creating a new venture. In 2003, three groups of young persons aged between 13 and 18 years participated in a program designed for empowerment. An evaluation was conducted nine months later that provided useful insight into the impact of the education design, content and delivery. This research provides deeper insight into the way FI and E education can be used to create empowerment through the derivation of a framework that addresses entry, process and agency factors.

Searching for Wortman’s Rural Economic Development Zones: A Case Study of Three Rural Electric Cooperatives

Kirk C. Heriot and Noel D. Campbell

This study uses Wortman’s Rural Economic Development Zones (Wortman, 1990a) and more recent work by Lyons (2002) as a point of departure to demonstrate entrepreneurship development suited to rural locations. We describe the current literature and rural electric cooperatives. Using a case method research design (Yin, 1994), we demonstrate the efforts of three modern rural electric cooperatives in the area of entrepreneurial development.  The study concludes with a discussion of the implications to public policy makers, electric cooperative executives and researchers in the field of entrepreneurship.

Entrepreneurial Discovery by the Working Poor

James O. Fiet, Robert D. Nixon, Mahesh Gupta and Pankaj C. Patel

We test the proposition that it is possible to train the economically vulnerable, working poor of inner cities to make entrepreneurial discoveries. We demonstrate the effective use of a model of constrained, systematic search. We employ an experimental design with a control group using the alertness approach recommended by received theory and a treatment group using systematic search. Our results indicate the systematic search approach works 25 times better among a sample of the working poor. In addition, we operationalize systematic search training protocols and implementation. We conclude by discussing special challenges inherent in training the economically disadvantaged and suggest that the lack of trust of those from outside the local community necessitates the building of bridges to targeted residents. Bridge building, as an integral part of public policy utilizing large-scale training, might be accomplished through reliance on established community relationships.