Entrepreneurship in Deprived and Less Deprived Areas and Place Attachment

Overview

Entrepreneurship is often identified as one possible tool that policymakers can use to regenerate areas described as deprived or ‘left behind’. There is, however, less evidence that encouraging residents of such areas to engage in enterprise is successful. This limited success can be argued to reflect the nature of the social capital that the prospective entrepreneurs possess. It is often characterised as tightly bonded with others who are similar in their local areas, rather than providing links to those further afield that have access to valuable networks and knowledge. However, it can also be argued that these tight bonds can provide the support and knowledge required to succeed in a difficult economic environment as found in deprived areas. Some have suggested that in these areas there is a strong enterprise culture present, but is hidden rather than part of the mainstream, and working with this existing enterprise culture would be more successful than imposing outside perceptions of what it should consist of.

One concept that might help provide an understanding of how entrepreneurs in deprived areas start and run their businesses is place attachment. Place attachment is a concept from environmental psychology and may affect the ability to access resources, valuable information and identify business opportunities in the area. Studies suggest it can be measured in terms of five dimensions: place identity, place dependence, nature bonding, family bonding and friend bonding. Some of these elements may have importance in the manner that residents consider themselves, and by extension their enterprises. For example, place identify can be a means through which individuals distinguish themselves from others. This project would seek to understand how these play a role in determining the nature of enterprises formed in deprived areas compared to others. Achieving this will allow policy makers to better tailor the programmes and projects that seek to support entrepreneurship.

The project would be expected to be primarily quantitative in nature, but could have a qualitative element. It would be expected that primary data collection would be needed to examine the specific context of the investigation. The project could start from the existing measures of place attachment, but would be expected to consider the extent these are appropriate for varying deprived area contexts. Regression or structural equation model (SEM) analysis might be considered as approaches for analysing the relationship between the place attachment measures and entrepreneurship variables in deprived and less deprived areas.

Nottingham Business School is triple crown accredited with EQUIS, AACSB and AMBA – the highest international benchmarks for business education. It has also been ranked by the Financial Times for its Executive Education programmes in 2023 and 2024. NBS is one of only 47 global business schools recognised as a PRME Champion, and held up as an exemplar by the United Nations of Principles of Responsible Management Education (PRME).  

Its purpose is to provide research and education that combines academic excellence with positive impact on people, business and society.  As a world leader in experiential learning and personalisation, joining NBS as a researcher is an opportunity to achieve your potential. 

Applications for October 2025 intake closes on 1st July 2025 and applications for Jan 2026 intake closes on 1st October 2025.