Observing community-based entrepreneurship and social networking at play in an urban village setting

Entrepreneurship as a manifestation of change is vital in terms of jobs and business dynamism. However, entrepreneurship as a social activity occurs in time and space and is seen as a natural, organic process. We assume this change will occur naturally, but this can be interrupted by planned change. This observational study examines the influence of socio-cultural factors on the evolution of community-based entrepreneurial activity in an urban village setting using the social metrics of home, habitus and habituation to examine how this activity develops within a planned monocultural middle class enclave. Studying social entrepreneurship in a fixed social setting permits us to investigate the embededdness of the entrepreneurial process in a naturally occurring environment. When the natural order is interrupted, entrepreneurial activity becomes disjointed and finds new avenues of emergence as community-based entrepreneurial activity in which business is facilitated by social networking and entrepreneurial identity is socially constructed through play.
Keywords: economic sociology; economic geography; social entrepreneurship; social networking; community-based entrepreneurship; urban villages; planned change; jobs; employment; business dynamism; cities; social activities; natural processes; organic processes; soc