On the one hand, the COVID-19 pandemic has been responsible for dramatic job losses and major downturns in many sectors of our economy.
At the same time, it has given rise to entrepreneurial activity on a scale not seen since the Global Financial Crisis of the 1980s.
As remote working becomes mainstream and more people flee our cities for less crowded climes, much of this entrepreneurial activity is likely to flourish in regional Australia.
In a timely new book, Entrepreneurship in Regional Communities, three University of New England (UNE) researchers are providing a rare snapshot of what entrepreneurship looks like in regional communities and how it might be fostered. They hope it will serve as a guide for current and future regional business people but also policy-makers, financial institutions and those interested in enabling vibrant regional communities.
Drawing on Regional Australia Institute and Evocities data, the authors conducted extensive interviews with business people across the agriculture, retail, professional services, accommodation and hospitality sectors in two major bio-regions.
They discovered that dynamic regional entrepreneurs have several things in common:
- they understand their community and are embedded in it;
- they network and have strong, trusted connections with stakeholders: relationships matter;
- they focus keenly on customer service and satisfaction;
- they rely on creating a unique regional identity, to differentiate their product and/or service;
- they employ creative strategies for attracting and retaining staff;
- they don't necessarily believe that bigger is better: serving local markets is just as important as exporting; and
- they access social and financial capital through their networks.
Regional entrepreneurs are different; they are motivated by goals beyond growth and individual economic gain.
These are the words of co-author Dr Subba Reddy Yarram, a Senior Lecturer in Finance within the UNE Business School, who also says: "Profits are important, for them to grow and contribute to their community, but empowering diversity is equally important. They not only play an economic role; they contribute to the fabric of their region."
Entrepreneurship is critical to regional prosperity, especially in the wake of COVID disruptions, according to fellow author, Emeritus Professor Alison Sheridan. "Regional communities are comprised largely of small and medium enterprises," she says. "Flourishing small businesses will enable these economies to survive, for communities to grow their populations and employment capacity. This will be especially important as more service businesses move to our regions, which has been a significant trend over the past decade.
"A strong sense of the mutuality of the business and its community can be an insurance against some of the risks that businesses are currently facing. Greater mobility from metropolitan to regional locations should also help to remove one of the constraints for regional entrepreneurs - the shortage of skilled labour."
Importantly, Associate Professor Sujana Adapa said new entrants and those seeking to improve the ease of doing business in regional areas need to take time to understand the local, place-based context.
"In our regions, business is about the community," she says. "Regional business owner-managers and entrepreneurs believe that their business should perform as well as their community."
Entrepreneurship in Regional Communities is available from: https://www.palgrave.com/gp/book/9783030605582 or https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-030-60559-9
