Community resilience through entrepreneurship: the role of gender

Abstract

Purpose This paper aims to contribute to entrepreneurship theorising by highlighting the salience of feminine caring positions in creating novel entrepreneurial roles and investigating how these roles contribute to community resilience. Using a critical feminist economics lens, alternative conceptualisations of the economy are expanded upon to reveal how an economic externality influences entrepreneurial discourse, gender roles and community resilience. Design/methodology/approach In this interpretive approach, empirical evidence is drawn from six months of intensive ethnographic research with 20 tourism handicraft micro-entrepreneurs in Crete and Epirus, Greece, in 2012 and hence in the context of a macroeconomic crisis. Ethnographic interviewing and participant observation are used as the methods to achieve the research objectives. Findings Thematic analysis is used to investigate how gender roles and entrepreneurial roles interact and how this interaction influences community resilience to an economic crisis. Using the critical theory to critique neoclassical economics interpretations of entrepreneurship, it becomes evident that politico-economic structures perpetuating feminised responsibility for social reproduction configure feminine entrepreneurial roles, and these roles have a positive effect on increasing community resilience. By conceptualising entrepreneurial involvement as being primarily for community gain, participants highlight how feminine entrepreneurial discourse differs from the neoclassical economics entrepreneurial discourse of entrepreneurial involvement being primarily for individual gain. Social implications This paper contributes to theoretical advancements on the role of gender in entrepreneurship and community resilience by investigating the entrepreneurs’ gendered responses to an exogenous shock. Providing insight into the role gender has in entrepreneurial adaptation and sustainable business practices means that new policies to combat social exclusion and promote rural development can be formulated. Originality/value The theoretical interplay between gender and entrepreneurship is investigated from a novel angle, that of critical feminist economics. The relationship between feminised interpretations of entrepreneurship and community resilience is brought to light, providing a unique insight into entrepreneurial resilience.

Entrepreneurship in nature-based tourism under a changing climate

“…McNaughton and Gray (2017: 3), for example, examined entrepreneurship and resilience, and emphasise that these two concepts have shared attributes, namely flexibility, adaptiveness, proactivity and innovativeness. Bakas (2017) has confirmed that entrepreneurship may increase community resilience in the context of an economic crisis. In addition, Steiner and Atterton (2015) state that rural business owners have certain characteristics (mainly motivation and resources) that help them turn challenges into entrepreneurial opportunities; thus, their influence on (community level) resilience is positive.…”

“…One aspect that is missing from this study is the gender and its impact on (community) resilience (e.g. Bakas, 2017); unfortunately the data does not allow examination from that perspective.…”

Las tejedoras mayas de Guatemala: un proceso activo para la salvaguardia de su patrimonio cultural inmaterial

“…Actualmente en Guatemala son mayoritariamente las mujeres indígenas quienes tejen y visten el vestido bordado tradicional en el telar de cintura, por lo que se establecen como las transmisoras de la memoria histórica y cultural en resistencia contra las políticas del olvido; uniendo la memoria en Guatemala con la condición de género (Méndez, 2018). El arte de tejer es una tarea normalmente considerada femenina, como lo muestra el presente caso de estudio en Guatemala (Méndez, 2018;Nelson, 2017); así como en Chipre, Europa (Kokko y Kaipainen, 2015); en Cuzco, Perú (Ypeij, 2012); en Grecia, Europa (Bakas, 2017); en comunidades diversas de México como Los Altos de Chiapas (Gil-Corredor, 2017), o Oaxaca (Ojinaga, 2020); la comunidad Seedaq, en Taiwan (Hwang y Huang, 2019); o en Sumba, Indonesia (Untari, Gajjala y Sanjaya, 2020), entre muchos otros.…”

Collaborative Networks for Sustainable Human Capital Management in Women’s Tourism Entrepreneurship: The Role of Tourism Policy

“…Collaborative networks can directly influence women entrepreneurs' HCM where collective action is encouraged among members and where members are able to access and act on learning resources, credit and group practices mobilized by the networks (Anderson, Locker, & Nugent, 2002;Woolcock, 2010). This collective action generates social capital which constitutes the shared trust, reciprocal exchanges, rules , and community development through the fostering of entrepreneurship (Bakas, 2017). For collaborative networks, the availability of capital (e.g.…”