Understanding how Indigenous community factors affect Indigenous entrepreneurial process

Background: Indigenous people in colonized countries across the globe are attempting to attain equitable life circumstances on par with populations that form the majority. The manner in which Indigenous peoples seek to achieve this assumes many different forms, some confrontational and some involving reconciliation. One way Indigenous people hope to create higher living standards in their communities is by engaging in the acquisition, creation and management of new ventures. In Canada these entrepreneurial activities occur in a variety of settings. This thesis is focused upon entrepreneurial activities (principally those of new venture creation) within one specific type of Indigenous community â- the reserve or 'band'. The research problem. The research problem reported in this thesis is fundamentally concerned with the broad issue of how a wide range of entrepreneurial processes can be successfully conducted in the context of Canadian Indigenous band communities. It is a thesis about the role of context on entrepreneurial process in a particular setting. Put at its simplest, my core question, stated at its broadest level of generality is: what makes for successful as distinct from unsuccessful entrepreneurship in the Canadian band community context? To do this, I need to understand how Indigenous context at the community level influences entrepreneurial process. The thesis thus involves the quest to achieve two actionable objectives. Objective 1: perform a structured investigation. This research seeks to understand the entrepreneurship phenomenon and associated entrepreneurial processes as they occur in Indigenous communities (as represented by Canadian bands) by detailed, structured examination and comparison of How Indigenous Community Context Affects Indigenous Entrepreneurial Process iv communities that are performing entrepreneurship (both successfully and unsuccessfully) and communities that are not even attempting entrepreneurial performance. Objective 2: develop a theoretical/analytical framework directly germane to understanding the relationship between Indigenous community context and successful entrepreneurial process. Conceptual discovery Involved three literature reviews. (1) Development of an understanding of the context of the Indigenous band and entrepreneurship within the specific 'band' environment (chapter 2). (2) A review of multiple generic perspectives on Indigenous under-development and entrepreneurship (Chapter 3). (3) A search for existing wisdom and models purporting to be effective for understanding the entrepreneurial potential of a 'community' (chapter 4) Two empirical investigations A two-part empirical investigation was conducted. I first constructed a grounded theory of successful entrepreneurship from data obtained through semistructured interviews of members from three 'exemplar' Canadian Indigenous bands. Then, after comparing the emergent-grounded theory against existing frameworks a second empirical investigation involved three theoretically guided 'case studies' with the objective of formulating a model that could identify the salient features of 'community' that affect the entrepreneurial process. Results The first stage empirical investigation resulted in a grounded theory with significant comportment with the analytical framework posited by Hindle (2010). 'Community factors' that facilitated the entrepreneurial process in the exemplar communities were in five 'categories', (1) governance and institutions, (2) culture and tradition, (3) land, (4) human capital, (5) networks. These findings comported well with Hindle's existing diagnostic framework which was then employed for further empirical study. A revised analytical framework called the Indigenous Community Venturing Model (ICVM) resulted from further case How Indigenous Community Context Affects Indigenous Entrepreneurial Process v studies. The ICVM is my principle finding and has significant implications for research, practice and policy. Implications In Canada there are many researchers studying entreprepreurship, but few focussed on Indigenous issues. Interested parties can find a variety of studies about Indigenous entrepreneurship but the majority of these are not empirically based. The literature is fragmented and eclectic. This left a gap (now filled) in the information available for future researchers, practitioners, Indigenous and non-Indigenous governments and policy makers. Researchers, practitioners and policy makers will find the ICVM to be both necessary and a useful tool.