Leveraging marquee businesses and community events in entrepreneurial community development

Abstract

Marquee businesses and community events emerge as important support mechanisms within a developing entrepreneurial community. Leveraging a longitudinal application of social network analysis, this research provides a view of the evolving structure of an entrepreneurial community and the strategies employed by its members as it grew. Utilizing a ten-year data set of 7565 cross-promoting Facebook posts from 35 members of a locally oriented entrepreneurial community, we find that there is a heavy reliance on within community ties, especially to marquee businesses and community events that serve as bridges across the community and attracting large numbers of customers to the area. These structures serve as valuable support to help members of the community overcome demand challenges associated with being in a smaller market and drawing people in from the surrounding region, while also providing definition to the unique offerings of the community.