The Entrepreneurial Development System: Transforming Business Talent and Community Economies, by Lichtenstein, G.A. and Lyons, T.S. Economic Development Quarterly, Volume, 15, Issue No. 1, pages: 3-20. 2001.

This article offers an alternative to the current paradigm for developing enterprises. We propose implementing a new approach, called the Entrepreneurial Development System (the generic name for the proprietary system we call the Entrepreneurial League System), for transforming community economies. We lay out the specifications for the new paradigm, drawing distinctions between current practice and our proposal. The article then describes the major components of our proposed enterprise development system; details its benefits to entrepreneurs, service providers, and the community; and discusses challenges to its full-scale implementation.

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Managing the Community’s Pipeline of Entrepreneurs and Enterprises: A New Way of Thinking about Business Assets, by Lichtenstein and Lyons, Economic Development Quarterly, Nov. 2006.

The paper offers a methodical approach to deciding when, where and how to invest in entrepreneurship as a cross cutting economic development strategy. To accomplish this, we present and operationalize the concept of a pipeline of entrepreneurs and enterprises in order to effectively segment the marketplace of businesses and differentiate among potential economic development clients within the community. We then describe three options for managing and intervening in a community’s pipeline of entrepreneurs and enterprises – performance-enhancement strategies, incubation strategies and selective attraction strategies – and discuss how the pipeline can help policymakers and practitioners make informed decisions about where to invest (in what segment) and which strategies to use.

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Building Entrepreneurial Communities: the Appropriate Role of Enterprise Development Activities, by Lichtenstein, G., Lyons, T.S., and Kutzhanova, N. appearing in the Journal of the Community Development Society, Vol. 35, No. 1, 2004, 5-24.

This article examines how building entrepreneurial communities can be used as a strategy for community economic development. We first define the term “entrepreneurial community” and clarify how economic developers go about trying to create such places by helping entrepreneurs grow new business. The article then critiques the current approach to enterprise development and explains why it is incapable of producing entrepreneurial communities. We then make a case for change.

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The Entrepreneurial League System®: Transforming your Community’s Economy Through Enterprise Development,, by Thomas S Lyons, Published by the Appalachian Regional Commission, March 2002. A short piece that describes the system.

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Building Social Capital: A New Strategy for Retaining and Revitalizing Inner-City Manufacturers, by Gregg Lichtenstein, Economic Development Commentary, 23 (3), 31-38, Fall, 1999.

A case study of an early prototype of the Entrepreneurial League System®, launched in urban Philadelphia in a territory of 330 manufacturers. This initiative achieved a 50% market penetration rate within three years, without the benefit of any pre-existing relationships. More than 160 firms were actively involved in a series of major improvement projects including new product development, industrial marketing, marketing internship, the creation of the first industrial district in the state (leading to the retention of over 350 jobs), training programs and human resource initiatives.

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A Story of Entrepreneurship and a Region’s Successful Economic Transformation.

This article, focused on the topic of how to build entrepreneurial regions, is written in the form of a story. It presents an image of what is possible, in transform struggling regions. But these processes of cultural and behavioral transformations are long-term and results take years to emerge. In our work with stakeholders, it has been enormously powerful to share our vision of the process in this form, so that they are able to “see” how this would work once it is up and running.

The central message of this article is that entrepreneurs are made and not born, and because of that fact we can, by methodically cultivating entrepreneurs, intentionally build a more entrepreneurial community, region or corporation. While this point may sound obvious, as a reading of the article will demonstrate by counterexample to existing behavior, it is rarely put into practice.

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Incubating New Enterprises: A Guide to Successful Practice by Lichtenstein and Lyons, Aspen Institute, 1996.

A comprehensive reference on incubating startups. Contains tools for diagnosing the needs of entrepreneurs and describes more than 115 practices that can be used to successfully address them. Available through the Aspen Institute and on Amazon.com. This book has also been translated into Spanish and published in South America.

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