Reframing entrepreneurship: an upside-down pyramid perspective on community-led social and cultural sustainability

This study examines how community-driven and culturally embedded forms of entrepreneurship contribute to sustainable development beyond market-oriented models. We propose an “upside-down pyramid” methodological approach that combines a bibliometric analysis of 1,155 scholarly articles with a qualitative and sociological analysis of 15 interviews to stakeholders from Officina Keller, a community-oriented cultural and creative enterprise in Southern Italy. The bibliometric analysis identifies five thematic clusters, covering environmental governance, inclusive innovation, and cultural regeneration.. The qualitative analysis highlights the role of community cohesion, territorial reactivation, and cultural memory in driving entrepreneurial innovation, while revealing persistent challenges linked to weak institutional and techno-economic support. By connecting large-scale scholarly discourse with situated practice, the study advances a more inclusive understanding of entrepreneurship and calls for policy frameworks that better integrate social and cultural dimensions into place-based community initiatives, particularly in contexts of place-based transformation and community-led regeneration.