Title:
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Social and cultural capital in Gaeltacht
entrepreneurship : the case of Donegal, Ireland
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The aim of this ethnographic case study was to explore the role of social and cultural capital
in Gaeltacht entrepreneurship. A series of qualitative depth interviews and interactions took
place over three years with twelve entrepreneurial cases engaged in business venturing within
traditional textiles, seafood, seaweed processing and cultural tourism in a Donegal Gaeltacht
(officially-designated Irish-speaking region of Ireland).
This study reports that, despite disadvantages linked to an underdeveloped, socially deprived
economic landscape, blighted with emigration, recessions and population decline, the
resilience of this group of entrepreneurs offers hope for future regional development in this
area. The deeply rooted social and cultural bonds of this community were found to be
valuable resources that combine with collaborative competencies to bridge gaps of
information and distance, bringing the world to this peripheral community and its
entrepreneurs to distant markets.
Three conceptual models new to the literature were developed comprising a matrix reflecting
degrees of indigenousness and embeddedness in Gaeltacht entrepreneurship, a network
model reflecting flows of socio-cultural capital activated in local and international markets
and an empirically grounded conceptual "wheel" reflecting a suite of socio-cultural
competencies and dispositions highlighting facilitators and barriers to Gaeltacht
entrepreneurial development.
This empirical analysis offers an insightful contribution and refines social and cultural capital
theories in the context of indigenous entrepreneurship in developing economies. Policy
implications include significant tourism potential for indigenous minority regions, if the full
potential of an authentic differentiated place brand capturing the "meitheal" or umque
indigenous socio-cultural capital of this Gaeltacht region were to be realised. Given the
significance of political competencies in the entrepreneurial skill-set, it is argued that there
are strong implications for further research a focus on policy measures for entrepreneurial
venturing, implicating further a key role of socio-cultural competencies in regional economic
development.
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