Operationalizing Collective Entrepreneurship in Community Development: Nine Interdependent Decision Domains for Recursive Collective Action
Year: 2026
Type: preprint
Abstract: Community-based entrepreneurial initiatives require more than a sequence of project activities. They must repeatedly negotiate who defines the territory, whose priorities count, who participates and represents others, who holds decision and ownership rights, how resources are mobilized, how adaptation is authorized, how evidence is interpreted, and whether continuation or scaling remains legitimate. This article operationalizes collective entrepreneurship through a recursive decision architecture organized around nine interdependent domains: understanding the territory; identifying needs and opportunities; mobilizing stakeholders; designing the initiative; establishing formal governance; mobilizing resources and financing; implementing and adapting; measuring, interpreting, and learning; and sustaining, replicating, or scaling selectively. The framework treats power, legitimacy, accountability, ownership, representation, and benefit-sharing as cross-cutting governance conditions, coordination costs as a cross-cutting constraint, and learning as a mechanism capable of reopening earlier decisions. Each domain is linked to an analytical question, a governance question, a methodological output, and principal risks. The framework is intended as an analytical and facilitation tool rather than a universal sequence or empirically validated program model. Its value lies in making the governance of collective agency explicit across implementation while preserving territorial fit, accountability, and adaptive capacity.
Author: Georges, Wilbert
Language: English
Subfield: Education
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7212237498
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