Carol Ekinsmyth

Managing the business of everyday life: the roles of space and place in “mumpreneurship”

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to develop gendered entrepreneurship theory through a focus on the roles of space and place in the daily lives and businesses of mothers who have configured business around the daily routines of family work. Design/methodology/approach – Through a consideration of the accounts of 29 “mumpreneurs” and using a framework forwarded by Jarvis to understand the geographically embedded “infrastructure of everyday life”, this paper seeks to understand mumpreneurial decision making, choice and constraint. Findings – Spatial factors, in their myriad forms, run through and affect mothers’ different levels of capability and constraint, and thus the (gender-role and entrepreneurial) “choices” that individuals and families make. Placing families in the realities of specific, material locales helps to embed our understandings of these decision-making processes in real places. Originality/value – This discussion: advances new understanding about how space and place enable or constra...

Enterprising mothers in residential neighbourhoods:the role of local social capital

In daily life, home-based parents take part in neighbourhood ‘space-time ballets’, negotiating space, schedule and duties (Tivers 1988, Schwanen et al, 2008). Neighbourhoods contain moving constellations of individuals whose daily activities result in repetitive temporary coalitions of individuals in specific places (e.g. primary schools, community halls, parks, playgrounds). The social networks and social capital that ensue, as a variable characteristic of neighbourhoods, and a potentially key aspect of home-based business, are the focus of this chapter. Concentrating on entrepreneurs with limited daily mobilities (mothers of young children), this chapter questions what role neighbourhoods might play in providing local social capital that can enrich home-based business.