Open Workshop by Prof. Jay Mitra: Citizen Entrepreneurship – Towards Involvement, Inclusion and Integration of Citizens in Entrepreneurial Europe

This presentation is based on a new research project on Citizen Entrepreneurship (CE). It aims to present a rationale for the engagement of citizens with the process and practice of entrepreneurship to enable a better alignment of entrepreneurial initiatives with social and community priorities and to address issues of global import of local interest in uncertain environments. Our paper is conceptual in scope and empirical in observation. The lack of prior theorizing about CE makes a case study approach an appropriate choice of methodology for developing theory (Eisenhardt, 1989, 2007). We use purposeful sampling of our cases and sub-cases. As cases we focus our research on selected cities in Denmark, Germany, and Poland, with the choice predicated upon our direct contact, knowledge of and involvement as observers or researchers in all three cases. We investigate CE through an explorative study involving engagement with communities of citizens and shared knowledge creation (Weisenfeld and Hauerwaas, 2018).

We apply multiple qualitative ethnographical methods of data generation such as participative and non-participative observations, semi-structured and narrative interviews, and project-based learning seminars with multiple actors. We used media reports, field notes, twitter feeds and videos were used to collect data about the cases. Using standard snowballing technique, we collected contacts and relationships, attending where possible events with multiple local actors, activists, local governments, consultants and organizations. Interview guides also served as an orientation frame with room for adaptation during each interview. Contact was made with local administrators and use was made of secondary data to characterize the different city eco-systems (Eurostat, local databases). Intense triangulation implies improved reliability of the data sources.We analyse the cases in exploratory, discursive mode referring to the key concepts of Schumpeterian entrepreneurship in society, the Olstromian ‘Commons’, and Sens Capabilities, bringing it all together in a unique formulation and application of the principle of ‘ethos’ and its constituent parts of phronesis, arête, and euonia, as developed by Aristotle in his major work ‘Rhetoric’ (1984) and revisited by Wynn (2017). We argue that CE is able to address local problems arising from wide-spread phenomena such as inequality, social polarization, populism, migration, and the gradual erosion of democratic institutions.

Jay Mitra is Professor of Business Enterprise and Innovation and Director of the Venture Academy at Essex Business School, University of Essex. He has acted as a Scientific Adviser to the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) as the Head of the Scientific Committee on Entrepreneurship for the OECD’s Centre for Entrepreneurship and the LEED (Local Economic and Employment) Programme at its Trento Centre and in Paris. He is a Visiting Professor at the University of Luneburg, Germany, and at Bayero University, Nigeria. He has held similar positions at University Externado. Colombia at the Institute of Management Technology, India, the School of Management, Fudan University, and the School of Public Policy at Jilin University, both in China, and at Bologna University, Italy. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts in the UK. 

Jay Mitra also leads the International Entrepreneurship Forum (IEF) a unique network and forum for researchers, policy makers and business practitioners working on entrepreneurship, innovation and regional development issues (http://ieforums.org). Professor Mitra trained in the private sector in the UK, worked as a Principal Officer for local government also in the UK, specialising in economic and business development, and taught at three other universities before joining the University of Essex. He is the editor of the new Journal of Entrepreneurship and Innovation in Emerging Economies’ (ISSN No. 2393-9575; http://eie.sagepub.com) published by Sage. He is a member of various editorial boards of international refereed journals.  He has written and published widely on the subject of entrepreneurship, innovation and economic development. Recent research, publications and keynotes have covered topics including Industry 4.0, SMART Cities, Digital Entrepreneurship, Blockchain, Artificial Intelligence and their implications for new and growing businesses, transnational enterprise, and female entrepreneurship.