Year: 2007
Type: article
Abstract: IntroductionTourism has long been promoted to Australian Indigenous peoples as a pathway to greater economic and community development.In turn, economic and community development is expected to improve the quality of life for Indigenous peoples, address the impoverished state that afflicts many, and diminish their dependence on Government transfers (ATSIC, 1997;NTTC, 2004). Gabrielle Russell-Mundine Key factors for the successful development of Australian indigenous entrepreneurshipTourism is promoted as a pathway to economic and social development for Indigenous peoples.However, the development of successful Indigenous tourism businesses in Australia has been limited.Indigenous Australians experience barriers to enterprise development which are broad in nature and range from economic barriers (such as lack of land tenure), to resource barriers (such as lack of training, education and insufficient infrastructure).Researchers for the Harvard Project in the USA report key factors essential to successful Indigenous entrepreneurship.Three of these factors are the ability of the corporation to engage community members, the ability to secure succession, and the ability to establish proper financial and administrative systems.This paper presents results of research in Australia which supports the importance of these three factors.Using an Indigenist research paradigm, the study was conducted over three years, with the members of an Aboriginal Corporation in New South Wales (NSW).The results highlight the need to build organisational and individual capacity development before instigating enterprise development.Particularly, the results presented in this paper show that instigating appropriate forms of governance is essential to encourage participation and cooperation from community members.Secondly, results show that succession is precarious and that further research is required to establish appropriate ways to encourage and enable young people and women to take on positions of responsibility.Finally, the results support the establishment of proper systems of financial governance, not only to encourage external stakeholder confidence, but also to assist the development and empowerment of individual corporation members.
Author: Gabrielle Russell-Mundine
Institution: Southern Cross University
Language: English
Subfield: Sociology and Political Science
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2117709511