Entrepreneurship in Cultural Heritage as a Common Good

As a non-profit industry, cultural heritage offers a substantial realm for elevating community involvement which extends to creating new and creative products, such as traditional artefacts, and active participation in entrepreneurial business management through cultural tourism initiatives. In this context, the community serves as a platform for expressing its cultural heritage through creativity and managerial innovativeness (Wyszomirski & Goldberg-Miller, 2015).

Cultural heritage and cultural identity manifestations represent shared resources and common socioeconomic goods among stakeholders. However, these goods may face challenges such as over-customisation or a lack of financial support. Given the contemporary community's socioeconomic needs, the heritage sites may deteriorate over time or even be forgotten. Emphasising the importance of the decision-making process and its repercussions, there is a need to strike a balance between investment profitability and heritage conservation (Kutut et al., 2021; Bolek, 2009). This practice promotes collaboration, fostering the safeguarding of tangible/intangible cultural heritage forms, and the preservation of authentic community-held cultural knowledge.

Conservation and management actions often necessitate substantial funding from the public sector. To address this financial demand, the public sector introduces public-private partnerships to financially support interventions and policies for managing and conserving heritage sites, mainly abandoned ones. (Gravagnuolo et al., 2018) This partnership carries numerous benefits, including alleviating constraints within the cultural heritage industry, balancing conservation and valorisation, and adding value through adaptive reuse. Such a partnership can transform cultural heritage, initially a matter of public interest and a part of collective memory and community cultural identity, into a semi-customised entity, effectively privatising it for commercial purposes. By strategically embracing hybridisation, public-private partnerships can be developed to support innovatively the heritage sites. Thus, it might be adopted through innovative business models that enhance the emerging entrepreneurial ecosystem. (Gustafsson & Amer, 2023; Bandarin et al., 2011; Allegro & Lupu, 2018; Ikiz Kaya et al., 2021; Summatavet & Raudsaar, 2015)

Recognising cultural heritage as a common good, within an ecological-economic development framework, establishes a rapport between the community and the heritage sites, fostering a sustainable conservation system (Faki, 2012). Adopting this perspective enables the enhancement and translation of the collective creativity of local communities into synergistic actions that contribute to sustainable development generating socioeconomic and cultural values (Pinto et al., 2019). Refining the business models of entrepreneurial or start-up ventures contributes to creating a network landscape encompassing the private sector, advocacy and lobbying groups, government agencies, and non-profit organisations (Gustafsson & Amer, 2023). Developing effective marketing strategies within this network serves to valorise the objectives of socioeconomic public goods, striking a balance between profitability maximisation and sociocultural sustainability. Reviewing socioeconomic regional development framework and targeting a segment, this entrepreneurial form emerges as a sustainable and viable business strategy. Consequently, entrepreneurs, with tangible/intangible cultural heritage, should raise their awareness in an urban-architectural economic manner of business thinking. (Matthew, 2008; Groen et al., 2008; Wyszomirski & Goldberg-Miller, 2015)

Demonstrating the socioeconomic impact of entrepreneurial actions involves adhering to a contained usage mode (Kutut et al., 2021). This mode sustains or restores authenticity while ensuring integrity with minimal human-induced impacts by avoiding economic globalisation and urbanisation acceleration. Cultural heritage transmission necessitates cultivating innovative and application-oriented visual communication talent. This talent proves invaluable in envisioning the future of the cultural heritage industry through profound cooperation between investments or enterprises, the community, and other actors (Song et al., 2019; Sun et al., 2021).

Zhou et al. (2022) underscore the importance of entrepreneurial cognition which was defined as entrepreneurs' awareness of relevant entrepreneurship support policies, entrepreneurship education in colleges, self-entrepreneurship purpose, entrepreneurship-related laws and regulations, and the entrepreneurship ecological environment. This cognitive understanding is crucial in obtaining economic benefits and enriching life experiences.

The heritage sites represent a moral dimension of cultural heritage enterprise, emphasising that economics and the market should be tools for realizing heritage values (Faki, 2012). From a rustic urban perspective, entrepreneurship is defined as a new creative organisation that introduces a new product, serves or creates a new market, or utilizes a new technology (Stathopoulou et al., 2004). Cultural heritage-based entrepreneurship is regarded as an approach that employs interdisciplinary entrepreneurial tactics to support people-centred cultural tourism activities financially. Simultaneously, it empowers community involvement, enhancing social resilience and stability. This approach encompasses preservation, and development, and fosters cultural identity, enhancing conservative entrepreneurial skills (Aageson, 2008; Sharif & Lonik, 2017).

Positioning cultural heritage-based entrepreneurship as a circular economy model, within the framework of developing a tourism image for a creative city, can foster the sustainability of the community's socioeconomic practices (Gravagnuolo & Varotto, 2021). This innovative mandate addresses the challenge of insufficient financial resources, making cultural heritage preservation a primary focus for the surrounding cultural and heritage enterprises. Furthermore, adopting a circular economy entails establishing co-evolutive economic synergy, cooperation, and collaboration while maintaining a sense of identity, belonging, and stewardship for the community. These elements express creativity, cultural diversity, and collective memory. Also, in alignment with UNESCO Declaration on Cultural Diversity (2001) and UNESCO Creative Cities Network (2004) mobilizing authenticated creativity in art and culture, these enhance the communities' environmental, sociocultural, and socioeconomic aspects and their cultural tourism initiatives, particularly in rural landscapes (Wyszomirski & Goldberg-Miller, 2015; Girard et al., 2019; Ikiz Kaya et al., 2021; Gravagnuolo et al., 2019; Faki, 2012). This innovative approach aims to generate a new economy that provides fresh opportunities in the tourism market and employment sector.

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