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Small Entrepreneurship, Knowledge and Social Resources in a Heavy Industrial Territory. The Case of Eco-Innovations in Dunkirk, North of France

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Abstract

The objective of this paper is to analyze the capacity of the small entrepreneur to innovate and especially eco-innovations. The entrepreneur is a social agent embedded in a given territory and a local community (work, family, school, and so on) from which he is identified by three types of resources: knowledge, financial, and social resources; we will define more analytically their role in this text and, especially, the key role of knowledge and social resources (informal social network). We interviewed 50 small entrepreneurs in the town of Dunkirk, a “heavy industrial area in crisis”, located in the North of France, to identify which resources (in knowledge, financial, and social resources) they are using to develop eco-innovations (new products and technologies).

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Notes

  1. Examples of environmental standards: Eco-artisan, EcoBat, Qualibat and so on.

  2. The shipyards were an important economic activity in Dunkirk from the nineteenth century (in 1898). They were closed in 1987.

  3. http://www.insee.fr/fr/insee_regions/nord-pas-de-calais/themes/insee-analyses/IA15_15/IA15_15.pdf

  4. La voix du Nord, 20th January, 2017.

  5. Les cahiers de l’AGUR, Dunkirk, 11 June 2015.

  6. AGUR, Repères stratégiques pour les états généraux de l’emploi, January 2015.

  7. But also in three other towns: Calais, Boulogne-sur-mer and Saint-Omer.

  8. http://www.insee.fr/fr/insee_regions/nord-pas-de-calais/themes/insee-analyses/IA15_17/IA15_17.pdf

  9. With 309 in Corsica or 147 in Ile de France.

  10. AGUR, Repères stratégiques pour les états généraux de l’emploi, January 2015.

  11. According to French law, a craft enterprise cannot have more than 20 workers.

  12. https://www.insee.fr/fr/statistiques/2011101?geo=COM-59183

  13. http://www.developpement-durable.gouv.fr/-Le-Grenelle-de-l-environnement-de-.html

  14. http://www.lavoixdunord.fr/region/grande-synthe-l-usine-air-liquide-pourrait-bientot-ia17b47594n3072094

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  1. University of Littoral, CLERSE (UMR-CNRS, 8019), Research Network on Innovation, Dunkerque, France

    Sophie Boutillier

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Correspondence to Sophie Boutillier.

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Table 6 Main sets of studied variables
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Boutillier, S. Small Entrepreneurship, Knowledge and Social Resources in a Heavy Industrial Territory. The Case of Eco-Innovations in Dunkirk, North of France. J Knowl Econ 10, 997–1018 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13132-017-0511-z

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