Forschungsprojekt ::

Ethical entrepreneurship and the region - Assessing the regional social impact of entrepreneurial behaviour

Projektbeschreibung

This study contributes to the discussion of the social impact of entrepreneurial behaviour on a region. In order to explore the concept within a regional context an empirical study was conducted in the automotive region of Ingolstadt, Germany. Eleven SME entrepreneurs were interviewed to gain an insight into the main value-based drivers of their entrepreneurial behaviour. Complementary, interviews with eleven public sector managers were analysed to determine their perspective of the regional impact of ethical entrepreneurship. The collected data was analysed with the qualitative rule-based method GABEK in order to systematically map the underlying conceptual architecture. The results show that ethical entrepreneurs act as innovators and pathfinders in a regional context, and provide rather practical solutions compared to public sector managers by applying patterns of entrepreneurial behaviour to social challenges.