Across European cities local entrepreneurs are joining forces in new ways, forming collectives to stimulate business growth and innovation and to create a more attractive business environment. The value of such collectives is increasingly recognized by local governments and policy measures to stimulate these initiatives are being developed. Amsterdam hosts different collaborative initiatives, including 39 business improvement districts (BIDs).The Knowledge Mile is such a collective in which shopkeepers, other local SMEs, residents work together to collectively improve a large retail area. The city of Amsterdam is also a stakeholder. Government can fill an important role in enabling the creation of collective resource management in urban settings. However, if effective regulation is missing, citizens and governing bodies have to look for incentives to find new means of addressing governance. As such, the potential for collective management of urban commons may be greater than realized so far, as there is still a lack of knowledge in this area. In this paper, we aim to bridge this gap. By means of an embedded case study approach, we analyze the interaction between the stakeholders in their development of a green zone, the Knowledge Mile Park, in the Wibautstraat. In the coming years, roofs, facades and ground level will be changed through a collaboration of residents, entrepreneurs, researchers, civil servants and students in a metropolitan Living Lab. In this Living Lab, solutions for a healthy and social environment, climate resistance and biodiversity are jointly developed, tested and shown. In our study, we will analyze the role of the governing bodies in such initiatives, and make recommendations how collectives can become more mainstream with new kinds of institutions, without an undue burden on the community.
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This text has become a performance of (affirmative) entrepreneurship. This is done by a set of writing (and methodological) techniques: autoethnography, the triptych of mimesis, poiesis, kinesis and a life journey that forms the base of the chapter. As such, this text challenges some well-known shortcomings of entrepreneurship research such as being enacted by a distant observer/writer, decontextualized accounts of entrepreneurship and disregard of creativity and playfulness. The main contribution of the chapter is methodological, in its broadest sense (Steyaert, 2011): I propose autoethnography as “more than method” for engaging with processes of (affirmative) Entrepreneuring that speak to the increased attention for narrativity and playfulness in entrepreneurship (see for example Hjorth, 2017: Hjorth and Steyaert, 2004: Gartner, 2007; Johannisson, 2011). The autoethnographic story offers an engaging and relevant account of the practice of entrepreneurship and provides rich emic insight into the socio-materiality of lived experience. It also highlights the temporality of entrepreneurship – both in terms of chronos (continuous flow of time) and Kairos (taking advantage of the “right moment”) (Johannisson, 2011). And as I continue performing affirmations, I am curious how you are Entrepreneuring your life – tell me. This is a draft chapter/article. The final version is available in Research Handbook on Entrepreneurial Behavior, Practice and Process edited by William B. Gartner and Bruce T. Teague, published in 2020, Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd https://doi.org/10.4337/9781788114523
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In most European countries entrepreneurship is one of the top priorities on the national agenda, to stimulate individual and organizational innovativeness and (regional) economic growth. As a consequence, embedding entrepreneurship in education to achieve this goal has gained importance and momentum especially at universities of applied sciences. Two questions need answering when trying to embed entrepreneurship in a curriculum. First of all: cán entrepreneurship be taught and second: hów should entrepreneurship be taught. In this paper we focus on an educational programme based on a learner-cantered, constructivist approach, which is offered in a multidisciplinary, inspiring and entrepreneurial setting. It is competency-based and is tailor-made to individual student demand and goes beyond the classic business school approach based on instruction. The programme caters for students from at least 40 different departments of the university. The starting point in this programme is the assumption that entrepreneurship can indeed be taught but that the pedagogical climate and approach is crucial and should contribute towards the development of entrepreneurial competencies and skills. In this paper issues such as the dynamics of learning are dealt with as well as some a discussion on learning paradigms. We elaborate on the programme developed at The Hague University of Applied Sciences, The Hague in The Netherlands. So far, over 250 students have participated in the programme and since September 2007 longitudinal research has taken place to establish the effects of the programme and the pedagogical approach on the development of entrepreneurialism. We then describe the research design and draw preliminary conclusions about the relation between pedagogical climate and entrepreneurial behaviour, competencies and entrepreneurial behaviour and finally the relation between entrepreneurial behaviour and the choice to become an independent entrepreneur. Our findings show that such competencies as self-discipline and vulnerability are positive influencers of entrepreneurial ambition. We also found negative influencers of entrepreneurial ambition in depression and inadequacy, yet interestingly also in sincerity. The role of the business partners involved in the programme is discussed and an account is given of the experiences of a population of students over a period of three years on the basis of a number of issues: what works, what doesn't work and what needs to be improved. Interesting drivers for entrepreneurial behaviour are distilled from our research, on the basis of which recommendations are given on how to best implement these drivers into an educational programme. The paper finalizes with a concluding note in which some of the drawbacks of a learner-centred approach as opposed to an instruction-based approach are discussed and suggestions for future research are made.
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