Enterprise development and dynamics in GCBR towns – hot off the press report available…
A quantitative study of enterprise development and dynamics in the Gouritz Cluster Biosphere Reserve (GCBR) has been completed. This is the first of its kind for a biosphere in South Africa.
Two broad entrepreneurial types were identified: ‘run-of-the-mill’ and ‘special’ entrepreneurs. They differ in their importance in the growth or decline of towns of different sizes and a strong predictive capability with regard to this phenomenon was developed.
In the GCBR there are extraordinary regularities between economic, demographic and entrepreneurial characteristics, suggesting an underlying cyclic system in which money is the principle driver that determines population sizes and enterprise numbers and distributions. The ‘GCBR system’ will produce its inherent outcomes and ‘strategies of hope’ will not work. For particular outcomes, the system has to be redesigned to produce the desired outcomes.
The key to sustainable economic development is to increase the inflow of money from sustainable external sources. Many business sectors are limited by the extent of their local market but some bring money in from outside, e.g. the tourism or processing sectors. They should be targeted for expansion.