Trespassing entrepreneurship – bridging business and community development

Abstract

The prime objective of this article is to explore the phenomenon of ‘trespassing entrepreneurship’, i.e. combined business and community entrepreneurship. The purpose is to explore two questions: How do ‘trespassing entrepreneurs’ combine business and community enterprise? Why do entrepreneurs engage themselves in both business and community development? A sample of four trespassing entrepreneurs has been interviewed and observed in a series of research projects. We found that it was a heterogeneous category in many aspects, but they all combined business and as community entrepreneurship by ‘dragging’ local authorities into entrepreneurial activities in order to develop the community. Acting on both arenas might be a more common phenomenon in the future, since management and entrepreneurship on different arenas have a tendency to become more alike. However, trespassing entrepreneurship is probably mostly a rural or small town phenomenon, since the links between business and community development are more obvious in such settings. Thus, demographic conditions, rather than individual traits, seem to determine the frequency of trespassing entrepreneurship. The notion of trespassing entrepreneurs demonstrates that distinctly different communities of practice, societal sectors or other terms for opposite elements can be united, at least partly, in single individuals.