Despite significant changes to the agricultural sector worldwide and major changes in demographic and population internal migrations and rural environs in recent years, the topic of rural enterprise and rural entrepreneurship in developing economies has not been the subject of concerted academic attention. As a consequence, with the exception of a few texts, the area remains relatively under-researched. This is particularly the case at the international level. This handbook aims to bridge this gap in the literature by offering a collection of contemporary research contributions that explore the complex nature of rural enterprise across a range of settings and geographical contexts. In particular, the book will include up to date policy contributions, as well as valuable insights into rural enterprise in practice in developing economies.
This handbook is concerned with defining and conceptualising rural entrepreneurship in developing economies. Much rural enterprise policy tends to be US or European focussed with an almost hegemonic notion that these countries have a superior knowledge of rural policy and rural entrepreneurship. Yet, it may be the case that rural entrepreneurship in some less developed countries is actually considerably more advanced in its practice, particularly when it comes to innovation to help mitigate the effects of the climate and environmental crisis.
In addition, although all regional and national economies consist of urban and rural components, much of the entrepreneurship literature tends to have an urban-centric focus. Thus, this book focuses on two important questions. Firstly, should there actually be a categorisation called ‘rural entrepreneurship’ or is it simply ‘entrepreneurial activity’ that occurs in rural environments in developed economies? Secondly, is a ‘rural’ business any different to an ‘urban’ business in terms of how it ‘does business?’ By way of laying the foundation for the wide range of contributions presented in this book a key aim is to seek to explore how and why a rural enterprise can be defined, and determine whether rural entrepreneurship is a distinctive category of entrepreneurship theory and practice.
Gerard McElwee is an independent academic who specialises in rural enterprise. He has published over 100 refereed articles and numerous book chapters. He has also edited several books and was the founding editor of The International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Innovation http://iei.sagepub.com/
which he launched in 1999. He has more than 3700 Google Scholar Citations and a H-index of 32.
His previous positions include Research Director and Professor of Rural Entrepreneurship at the University of Huddersfield, Professor of Rural Entrepreneurship and Acting Dean at Sheffield Hallam University, and Professor of Rural Entrepreneurship and Head of the Department of International Business at Nottingham Trent University.
Gerard has supervised to completion 12 Doctoral students and examined 20 others.
He currently teaches Research Methods and Entrepreneurship in Europe, South America, India and the Middle East. He is also an active consultant to rural businesses.
In terms of research, he is particularly interested in rural entrepreneurship and rural sustainability. His recent work has focused on farm diversification strategies for upland farmers and the role of animateurs in village economic and environmental sustainability. Latterly, he is working on illegal entrepreneurship in rural environments and the extent to which informality and illegality are in themselves manifestations of diversified personal or firm strategies.
Robert Smith MA, PhD is an independent academic who specialises in rural enterprise, gender and enterprise, entrepreneurial narrative and semiotics, and criminal entrepreneurship. He has published over 200 refereed qualitative articles and numerous book chapters and has also edited several books and written a book on Entrepreneurship in Policing and criminal contexts. Rob was case study editor for the The International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Innovation http://iei.sagepub.com/ for a five-year period. He has more than 2600 Google Scholar Citations and a H-index of 27.
His previous positions include Reader in Entrepreneurship at Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen and Professor of Enterprise and Innovation at the University of the West of Scotland, Dumfries. Rob has supervised to completion 14 Doctoral students and examined 22 others. He is a member of the ISBE and the British Society of Criminology. Between 2008 and 204 he was also the Scottish Institute for Policing Research lecturer in management and leadership at RGU. He is currently a senior research fellow at DeMontfort University, Leicester as well as being an active consultant on criminal entrepreneurship.
Rob has taught Entrepreneurship, Leadership, Management, Research Methods and Strategy at Undergraduate, Post-Graduate and MBA levels.
Rob’s research interests are eclectic, but he is particularly interested in rural entrepreneurship, animateurship, rural sustainability, regional development, village entrepreneurship and the intersection with rural crime and illicit rural enterprise. A major theme of his work relates to applications and settings of entrepreneurship and in particular stereotypes and metaphors of enterprise. His most recent work has focused on criminal entrepreneurship, rogue-farmers and rural organised crime groups.
