Williams, C.C. and Youssef, Y.A. (2014) Is Informal Sector Entrepreneurship Necessity- or Opportunity-driven? Some Lessons from Urban Brazil. Global Business and Management Research: an International Journal, 3 (1). 41 - 53 . ISSN 1947-5667
Abstract
The aim of this paper is to evaluate critically the widely-held assumption that entrepreneurs operating in the informal sector in developing nations are largely necessity-driven entrepreneurs, pushed into this entrepreneurial endeavour as a survival strategy in the absence of alternatives. Reporting an extensive 2003 survey conducted in Brazilian urban areas of informal sector entrepreneurs operating small businesses with less then five employees, the finding is that under half of the surveyed entrepreneurs are driven out of necessity into entrepreneurial endeavour in the informal economy. The outcome is a call to recognize the prevalence of opportunity-drivers amongst entrepreneurs operating in the informal economy and to reposition informal sector entrepreneurs more centre-stage in discussions of entrepreneurship and enterprise development.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2014. Colin C. Williams & Youssef Youssef. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
Keywords: | Informal economy; Underground economy; Entrepreneurship; Micro-enterprise; Small businesses; Enterprise development, Economic development, Brazil |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Social Sciences (Sheffield) > Management School (Sheffield) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 30 Jun 2015 10:24 |
Last Modified: | 30 Jun 2015 10:24 |
Published Version: | http://dx.doi.org/10.5430/bmr.v3n1p41 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Universal Publishers - Boca Raton, Florida, USA |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.5430/bmr.v3n1p41 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:87290 |