Entrepreneurial learning and Belonging to a Community of practice

Questions we care about (Objectives):

The question we care about is how micro-business entrepreneurs commit themselves to a network and how this commitment or non-commitment relates to entrepreneur’s perceptions of their learning.

Approach:

In our empirical case study our aim is to explore how participants of an entrepreneurship development commit themselves to a network as a “site” and a place for peers to meet and communicate with one another. Networks are considered a learning opportunity for smaller enterprises, and networking is seen as an important part of small business development. Following the social dimension of entrepreneurial learning, entrepreneurship can be understood in terms of the social groups to which entrepreneurs relate focusing on the experiences and perceptions of group belonging (McKeever et al., 2014). We aimed to understand how micro-business entrepreneurs commit themselves to an entrepreneurship training program by drawing on Wenger’s (1998) framework of a community of practice and how the commitment within a training programme relates to the entrepreneurs’ perceptions of their learning.

In order to really understand what goes on within the network in which the entrepreneur is immersed and to build a view of how participants interpret their experiences within it, we wanted to get close to the natural real-life settings in which entrepreneurship takes place. We collected data by interviewing members of the network “manufactured” (Jack et al., 2010) for them by a local enterprise support agency and also observing them at official and unofficial meetings for two years.

Results:

Our research shows that there was a remarkable heterogeneity between the needs of the members, and that their previous experiences notably affected the participation in the community. It seems that the participants who most actively developed their business did not find themselves at the core of the community of practice but rather remained at the margin. However, the community of practice may be important even from the marginal position. We noticed that some members who are not fully committed to entrepreneurship are taken at the core of the community. Our study demonstrates that belonging to a community may also have motives which do not necessarily contribute to the development of one’s business.  In terms of the perceptions of their learning, the findings reveal that the participants perceived more personal than concrete business benefits of the training programme. The development of a personalized network with peers has to some extent been shown to help entrepreneurs learn and diminish feelings of isolation and loneliness. Our research shows that the entrepreneurial learning has become embedded in the relationships themselves which is consistent with the literature on entrepreneurial learning as a social process.

Implications:

The study specifically increased our understanding of the role of an entrepreneurship training programme in the development of micro-business entrepreneurs revealing aspects that influence the participating in a community of practice.  The successful development of network relationships should stimulate a sense of community among participants. These challenges are closely related to the question of how to support participants of a training programme to enhance learning experiences in a manner that addresses the interests, agenda and objectives of all concerned.

Value/Originality:

Our study offers insight into networks and micro-firm co-operative learning and it contributes to an understanding of the way networks and social relationships facilitate learning and the development of small business activity. The experiences of learning as perceived by the participants varied in terms of the benefits of the learning relationships built within the network among the participants. By getting close to natural and real-life settings in which entrepreneurship takes place we had an opportunity to watch and learn how entrepreneurs interact increasing our understanding of the way people behave in the way they do. This opportunity to go under the surface might result in a richer interpretation of the relationship between networking and learning in small firms.

Keywords: networking, learning, community of practice, micro-business owner