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" Social and cultural capital in Gaeltachtentrepreneurship : "
Fox, Deirdre
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Latin Dissertation
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| Record Number
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1101443
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TLets695320
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| Main Entry
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Fox, Deirdre
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| Title & Author
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Social and cultural capital in Gaeltachtentrepreneurship :\ Fox, Deirdre
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| College
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Ulster University
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| Date
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2015
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| student score
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2015
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| Degree
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Ph.D.
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| Abstract
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The aim of this ethnographic case study was to explore the role of social and cultural capitalin Gaeltacht entrepreneurship. A series of qualitative depth interviews and interactions tookplace over three years with twelve entrepreneurial cases engaged in business venturing withintraditional 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 deprivedeconomic landscape, blighted with emigration, recessions and population decline, theresilience of this group of entrepreneurs offers hope for future regional development in thisarea. The deeply rooted social and cultural bonds of this community were found to bevaluable resources that combine with collaborative competencies to bridge gaps ofinformation and distance, bringing the world to this peripheral community and itsentrepreneurs to distant markets.Three conceptual models new to the literature were developed comprising a matrix reflectingdegrees of indigenousness and embeddedness in Gaeltacht entrepreneurship, a networkmodel reflecting flows of socio-cultural capital activated in local and international marketsand an empirically grounded conceptual "wheel" reflecting a suite of socio-culturalcompetencies and dispositions highlighting facilitators and barriers to Gaeltachtentrepreneurial development.This empirical analysis offers an insightful contribution and refines social and cultural capitaltheories in the context of indigenous entrepreneurship in developing economies. Policyimplications include significant tourism potential for indigenous minority regions, if the fullpotential of an authentic differentiated place brand capturing the "meitheal" or umqueindigenous socio-cultural capital of this Gaeltacht region were to be realised. Given thesignificance of political competencies in the entrepreneurial skill-set, it is argued that thereare strong implications for further research a focus on policy measures for entrepreneurialventuring, implicating further a key role of socio-cultural competencies in regional economicdevelopment.
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Ulster University
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