Farming, the Environment and Entrepreneurship in the Shropshire Hills 1997-2009
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The theme of this paper is the impact of participation in an
environmental scheme on the host SME and the measurement of other
entrepreneurial activity associated with the same SMEs. The following
work objectives were adopted: To examine a representative sub sample
of these SME participants and non-participants in the Shropshire Hills
Environmentally Sensitive Area (SHESA) and to conduct a longitudinal
study over the 23 year period 1986 to 2009 of farming and enterprise in
the families concerned.
Busenitz, Gomez and Spencer (2000) inform the study in their conceptual
framework, relating the institutional perspective of entrepreneurship
(regulatory, cognitive and normative) with the sample taken for this
research. The conceptual framework of McElwee (2008) and the earlier
work of Carter (1998) are applied to classify the actions of the farmer
SMEs with relation to their entrepreneurial activities.
A longitudinal study of a stratified random sample of rural SMEs
in the Shropshire Hills was undertaken in 1997 with 43 face to face
interviews. A telephone survey of the same sample was carried out in
2008. Four face to face interviews with farmer SMEs were carried out
in 2009.
The evidence shows that the participants in the environmental scheme
farmed more intensively than the non-participant group. Participation
in the environmental scheme did not appear to be an aspect of or to
enhance farmers’ entrepreneurial tendencies. The work has implications for agencies involved with increasing
entrepreneurial capacity and promoting responsible business
behaviour and corporate social responsibility in SMEs and with
farmers and consultants.