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Importance of Community Development
A variety of methods exist for improving human well-being and addressing the problems highlighted in the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals. Although no method guarantees perfect outcomes, we believe that community development possesses the most potential to generate sustainable solutions to problems that inhibit human well-being.
Community development is a holistic approach grounded in principles of empowerment, human rights, inclusion, social justice, self-determination and collective action (Kenny, 2007). Community development considers community members to be experts in their lives and communities, and values community knowledge and wisdom. – Australian Institute of Family Studies
Built on the assumption that community members are the leading experts on their lives and cultures, community development empowers community members to design their own solutions to pertinent problems in their lives. Community-designed solutions are more likely to be deemed effective and acceptable by community members than external solutions that fail to account for community values and cultural norms. Therefore, community development provides an ideal framework for improving human well-being.
Enhancing Community Development Approaches
Since community development aims to enable community-driven solutions, development professionals should pursue community development approaches that maximize community members’ capacity to create effective solutions for their local problems. In other words, development professionals should favor strategies focused on increasing local innovation capacity.
In order to maximize local innovation capacity, community development approaches must equip community members with the entrepreneurship skills required to design and implement community-oriented innovations. Additionally, community development projects need to encourage communities to provide services and resources that support local innovation. Essentially, development professionals must focus on building community-specific entrepreneurship ecosystems if they seek to successfully empower communities to autonomously solve local problems.
Entrepreneurship Ecosystems are dynamic communities of institutions, organizations, and individuals that enable the development of new businesses. – Social Sector Network
The diagram below shows the key participants in advanced entrepreneurship ecosystems:
As the diagram illustrates, numerous types of organizations work together to produce impactful innovations in advanced entrepreneurship ecosystems.
Building Community-Specific Entrepreneurship Ecosystms
Building entrepreneurship ecosystems does not mean replicating Silicon Valley.
Although Silicon Valley has cultivated the world’s most advanced entrepreneurship ecosystem, this legendary startup community should not serve as an aspirational model that ecosystem developers seek to emulate. Rather than recreating Silicon Valley, ecosystem developers should cultivate entrepreneurship ecosystems that align with communities’ natural strengths and priorities.
Every community possesses unique characteristics, such as cultural values and economic expertise, that provide natural opportunities for innovation and development. If community members possess high levels of agriculture and manufacturing expertise, they will probably experience greater success in creating agriculture and manufacturing innovations than launching social media startups. To maximize chances of success, entrepreneurship ecosystem building initiatives must be structured around communities’ unique characteristics.
To effectively empower communities, community development initiatives should focus on building entrepreneurship ecosystems through culturally-aligned strategies.
Hofstede Cultural Dimensions
Developed by Professor Geert Hofstede, Hofstede Cultural Dimensions provides a straightforward framework for analyzing cultural values. Using six distinct dimensions, this framework examines average population preferences around social systems and other cultural determinants.
Primarily used for comparing national cultures, Hofstede Cultural Dimensions has valuable applications for community development projects focused on entrepreneurship ecosystem building. In preparation for entrepreneurship ecosystem building, ecosystem developers can apply Hofstede Cultural Dimensions to pinpoint a community’s cultural values and determine ideal strategies for community engagement.
(View Country Comparisons of Cultural Dimensions)
[Culture is] the collective programming of the mind distinguishing the members of one group or category of people from others. – Professor Geert Hofstede
In order to improve community development outcomes, ecosystem developers should use the Hofstede Cultural Dimensions to select culturally-aligned strategies and build entrepreneurship ecosystems that embrace communities’ unique characteristics.
Using Hofstede Cultural Dimensions to Select Strategies for Entrepreneurship Ecosystem Building
Ecosystem developers can determine ideal ecosystem building strategies by analyzing communities using the six cultural dimensions.
POWER DISTANCE INDEX (PDI)
The Power Distance Index (PDI) describes attitudes toward inequality in a society. Large degrees of Power Distance indicate that less powerful members of society have a high degree of acceptance for inequality and unequal power distributions. Low degrees of Power Distance indicate that people in the community seek to equalize the distribution of power. Essentially, people in societies with high Power Distance are less likely to question inequality than people in societies with low Power Distance.
Community Development and Entrepreneurship Ecosystem Building Implications
- High PDI Societies: Since people will tend to accept established hierarchies and unequal power distributions, inclusive innovation strategies may encounter high levels of resistance. People will have difficulty accepting the notion that anyone can come up with high-quality ideas and develop entrepreneurial innovations to solve community problems. When they are working in high PDI societies, ecosystem developers should focus on teaching community members to value each other’s unique perspectives, skillsets, and expertise. It is important to demonstrate that people who hold low positions in hierarchies may have knowledge and experience that makes them better equipped to solve certain problems than people who hold higher positions and lack exposure to ground-level issues. Community members must learn to value each other’s ideas before they can begin to accept inclusive innovation efforts.
- Low PDI Societies: Since people will tend to value equality, inclusive innovation strategies should be fairly easy to implement. Ecosystem developers should leverage the communities’ desire for equality and pursue community-based initiatives that focus on developing social entrepreneurial solutions aimed at reducing inequalities. People in low PDI societies will be eager to take ownership of their community development programs, and ecosystem developers should let community members dictate their entrepreneurship ecosystem building process. In low PDI societies, ecosystem developers should primarily focus on education and training initiatives that empower communities to manage community development and cultivate an entrepreneurship ecosystem reflecting their community values.
INDIVIDUALISM VERSUS COLLECTIVISM (IDV)
Individualism Versus Collectivism (IDV) indicates attitudes about social interdependence and cohesion. High IDV scores mean that people in a society favor individualism, which means they prefer a social framework where they are primarily responsible for themselves and immediate family members. Low IDV scores mean that people favor collectivism, a social framework where individuals take care of each other in exchange for group loyalty.
Community Development and Entrepreneurship Ecosystem Building Implications
- High IDV Societies: People in individualistic societies will be incentivized to innovate if they perceive opportunities for personal gain. To promote community development and social entrepreneurship in high IDV societies, ecosystem developers must ensure that individuals receive adequate personal rewards for their community contributions. When individuals implement social entrepreneurial solutions to community problems, they will expect to receive money, recognition, and status as compensation for the impact they generate. Ecosystem developers should work with policy makers to ensure that social innovation is incentivized through legal mechanisms (e.g. intellectual property rights, tax incentives, investment regulations) that reward individuals for pursuing community-oriented entrepreneurship.
- Low IDV Societies: People will naturally be inclined to support each other in collectivist societies. In strong collectivist cultures, Individuals will possess a sense of social responsibility incentivizing them to develop innovative solutions to community problems. Ecosystem developers should pursue initiatives to equip community members with social entrepreneurship skills so people can effectively identify community problems, design viable solutions, and implement social innovations. In low IDV societies, ecosystem developers will not need to enforce merit-based reward systems to the extent required by high IDV societies.
MASCULINITY VERSUS FEMININITY (MAS)
Masculinity Versus Femininity (MAS) describes attitudes around competition and cooperation. High MAS scores indicate masculine cultures that value personal achievement, assertiveness, material success, etc. Low MAS scores mean that cultures value feminine characteristics, such as cooperation and caring. Masculine cultures favor competition, and feminine cultures favor cooperation.
Community Development and Entrepreneurship Ecosystem Building Implications
- High MAS Societies: Similar to people in high IDV societies, people living in masculine cultures will require opportunities for personal gain to innovate for their communities. Ecosystem developers must ensure that strict merit-based reward systems exist to incentive social innovation in masculine societies. Since high MAS societies favor competition, ecosystem developers should harness people’s competitive tendencies to accelerate social innovation processes. Using events and policies that encourage competition among startup teams, ecosystem developers can create conditions where rival startup teams push each other to develop social innovations with greater levels of speed and effectiveness than if teams were to work in isolation.
- Low MAS Societies: People living in feminine cultures have a natural inclination to work together for the benefit of struggling community members. Ecosystem developers should leverage design-oriented events, technologies, and processes to enhance collaboration among community members in ways that empower them to develop social innovations. By using proper training and facilitation techniques, ecosystem developers can help people leverage their collaborative tendencies and caring natures to create social entrepreneurial solutions that positively impact their communities. When overseeing initiatives in low MAS societies, ecosystem developers must remain mindful that people may over-prioritize cooperation and consensus to an extent that impedes decision-making, ultimately slowing down social innovation processes.
UNCERTAINTY AVOIDANCE INDEX (UAI)
The Uncertainty Avoidance Index (UAI) indicates attitudes toward uncertainty and ambiguity. If a society has a high UAI score, people favor rigid belief structures, and they do not appreciate ideas and behaviors that go against cultural norms. A Low UAI score means that people maintain open-minded perspectives around new ideas and behaviors. Societies with high UAI scores dislike uncertainty and seek ways to control their culture’s future development.
Community Development and Entrepreneurship Ecosystem Building Implications
- High UAI Societies: Since high UAI societies discourage new behaviors and ideas, they provide unfavorable environments for social innovation and create cultural pressures that discourage entrepreneurship. Before considering entrepreneurship ecosystem initiatives in high UAI societies, ecosystem developers must implement methods to increase open-mindedness among community members so the community starts to value new behaviors and ideas associated with entrepreneurial innovation. Open-mindedness training strategies include:
- Encouraging cross-cultural interaction by offering opportunities for international travel, promoting consistent virtual interactions with people in other countries, and exposing people to alternative media (e.g. music, literature, movies from other cultures)
- Using simulations and role-play games to teach perspective taking
- Designing experimental assignments where people challenge social norms (e.g. publicly break a social norm and analyze whether people responded as expected)
- Teaching entrepreneurship methods that prioritize problem-centric design and small experiments, rather than paradigm-shifting innovations
- Low UAI Societies: People in low UAI societies are comfortable with uncertainty. They also view new ideas and behaviors with open minds. Since entrepreneurial innovation requires experimentation with new ideas and behaviors, low UAI societies provide ideal conditions for entrepreneurship ecosystem development. Ecosystem developers should encourage entrepreneurship in low UAI societies by communicating how existing community characteristics, such as comfort with uncertainty and openness to new ideas, correlate with entrepreneurial success. As community members decide to pursue entrepreneurship, ecosystem developers should ensure that training programs and support resources are readily available. Additionally, training and support services should be designed to motivate early-stage entrepreneurs to pursue social innovation projects address community issues.
LONG TERM ORIENTATION VERSUS SHORT TERM NORMATIVE ORIENTATION (LTO)
Long Term Orientation Versus Short Term Normative Orientation (LTO) describes attitudes around social change. High LTO scores characterize societies where people value innovation, education, and social change. If a society has a low LTO score, people favor tradition and established norms over activities that encourage social change.
Community Development and Entrepreneurship Ecosystem Building Implications
- High LTO Societies: Ideal for entrepreneurship ecosystem building, high LTO societies value innovation, education, and social change. People in high LTO societies will greatly appreciate ecosystem development initiatives aimed at training and supporting social entrepreneurs. To accelerate ecosystem growth and community development, ecosystem developers should encourage stakeholder coordination by emphasizing the essential roles that entrepreneurship education and innovation support play in facilitating beneficial social change. Additionally, ecosystem developers should champion inclusive innovation strategies that empower all community members to contribute to social change initiatives.
- Low LTO Societies: People in low LTO societies favor tradition over social change, so ecosystem developers should refrain from overtly promoting social innovation in low LTO communities. To achieve community buy-in, entrepreneurship ecosystem building strategies should respect established cultural traditions. Furthermore, ecosystem developers should frame entrepreneurship as a mechanism for solving community problems, rather than a vehicle for accelerating social change. Initially, entrepreneurship training and support initiatives should help community members create solutions to immediate community problems, rather than challenging established norms in pursuit of transformative long-term goals. As community members gain comfort with entrepreneurial problem-solving, ecosystem developers may gradually guide people to pursue longer-term projects that incrementally adjust established norms. However, ecosystem developers must take small, calculated steps when introducing entrepreneurial thinking to the community since people may reject entrepreneurship if they perceive it as a threat to their community traditions and cultural values.
INDULGENCE VERSUS RESTRAINT (IVR)
Indulgence Versus Restraint (IVR) indicates attitudes toward the pursuit of pleasure. Societies with high IVR scores favor indulgence and believe that people should freely engage in activities and behaviors that bring them enjoyment. Low IVR scores describe restraint-oriented societies where people value strict social norms and suppression of gratification.
Community Development and Entrepreneurship Ecosystem Building Implications
- High IVR Societies: In high IVR societies, people support the pursuit of pleasure, so community members will appreciate entrepreneurial innovations where the primary objective is making people happy. When working in high IVR communities, ecosystem developers should ensure that entrepreneurship training programs teach human-centered design and customer-centric innovation processes. Community members will be inclined to pursue innovations that fulfill customer desires in addition to solving problems. Startup teams prioritizing customer happiness will be well-positioned to develop profitable business models since customers will pay premiums for products and services designed to delight them. Although high IVR societies create conditions for successful startups, they may deter entrepreneurs from building solutions to pressing community problems. To encourage impact-oriented social entrepreneurship, ecosystem developers must promote community-oriented innovations and provide public recognition for startup teams that choose to focus on solving community problems with social and environmental implications.
- Low IVR Societies: In low IVR societies, people look unfavorably upon the pursuit of pleasure and personal gratification. Rather than promoting customer-centric innovation, training programs should frame entrepreneurship as an ideal mechanism for helping communities overcome barriers that prevent people from meeting their core needs. Ecosystem developers should educate community members on the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals and demonstrate how social entrepreneurship can provide solutions to significant problems, such as food insecurity and water scarcity. Low IVR communities will be inclined to embrace entrepreneurship as a strategy for meeting core community needs, rather than a vehicle for making money through pleasure-oriented products and services.
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