Entrepreneurship and Innovation Today

CfP: Entrepreneurship in Indigenous Communities

Call For Papers Journal of Enterprising Communities “Entrepreneurship in Indigenous Communities”

Editors for the Special Issue: Prof Howard Frederick, Unitec New Zealand (Auckland) Dr Dennis Foley, Swinburne University of Technology (Melbourne) Due date for submission is October 15, 2007. Around the world there is a growing awareness that policies directed to re-igniting and / or developing new Indigenous entrepreneurial activity has the potential to dramatically improve economic and social well-being. Best-practice lessons show that Indigenous people can improve their standards of living through enterprise.  As former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan once said, “Entrepreneurs have the power to create the greatest change for their own countries”. In this special issue we focus on enterprise, broadly defined, in Indigenous communities.  This often means business enterprises but it can also mean enterprises with much broader goals, many of them social / cultural / environmental rather than economic, and they exhibit diverse forms of ownership, organization and operation.  We seek research articles, well-developed case studies and book reviews that deal with successes and failures, explore theoretical perspectives, distil key practices, detect common pitfalls, and identify policy issues and options. The topic area should focus on communities, but the content is open.  We welcome articles that deal with Financing of Indigenous Enterprise; Marketing Indigenous Products and Service; Gaming, Media and Design; Indigenous Women; Education & Training; Commercial & Professional Infrastructure; Role of Culture; Role of Government Agencies; Case Studies from around the world.  Research articles should not exceed 25 pages.  Cases and book reviews may be as short as five pages.  Contributions should be prepared in accordance with the Journal’s submission guidelines located at http://www.emeraldinsight.com/info/journals/jec/notes.jsp Please send an electronic copy of your contribution before October 15, 2007 to:  Professor Howard Frederick, Unitec New Zealand, Auckland, [email protected] and Dr Dennis Foley, Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne [email protected] However, authors are welcome to submit their manuscripts earlier. The review process will begin immediately upon receipt of the manuscript. Inquiries are welcome.

Boosting Britain's Ethnic Minority Entrepreneurs

Great Britain's Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) has recently announced creation of a new Ethnic Minority Business Task Force to help boost business ownership among Great Britain's ethnic minorities and to help existing businesses achieve faster growth rates.  As in the US, Britain's minorities face some unique hurdles when trying to start or grow a new business.  Recent DTI-sponsored research that British minority business owners are more likely to be rejected for business finance and to be discouraged from applying for outside financing in the first place.

Survey findings include:

• Ethnic minority-owned businesses pay higher bank loan charges than White-owned businesses, on average;
• The gap between the amounts of business finance sought and the amounts agreed is significantly greater for Black African and Pakistani-owned businesses;
• Black African and Black Caribbean-owned businesses are much more likely than Indian, Pakistani and White-owned businesses, to be rejected for loans outright;
• Black African and Black Caribbean owned businesses are significantly more likely to feel discouraged from applying for finance than Indian, Pakistani and White-owned businesses;

Some of these differences may be the result of market forces, but researchers have found that other factors may also be at play.  The Task Force's job is to assess the role of these additional factors and to offer recommendations for closing the finance gap.

Learn more about Great Britain's new Ethnic Minority Business Task Force. 

The 263 page survey, 'Finance For Small And Medium-Sized Enterprises: Comparisons of Ethnic Minority And White-Owned Businesses' is available here.

© 2005-2007

Walter Derzko -"Changing the world, one idea at a time"©

Walter Derzko teaches at the Certificate Program on Entrepreneurship and Innovation at the University of Toronto, School of Continuing Studies, which starts in the Fall of 2007

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