Search

Entrepreneurship is regarded by policy makers and politicians as an accelerant for economic development. Economic geography demonstrates that rather than stimulating entrepreneurship in general, policy makers should support specific forms of entrepreneurship that fuel wider growth. The paper's original contribution is to insist that entrepreneurship research must also explore less growth-oriented, but crucially very widespread, forms of entrepreneurial activity. The paper therefore places solo self-employment – the self-employed without employees – centre stage as an exemplar of this trend. Research is presented on private tutors who run businesses from home, offering children one-to-one tuition in the burgeoning supplementary education industry. The paper scrutinises the causes, configuration and consequences of such solo self-employment as an economically marginal, but numerically dominant, form of entrepreneurship. In so doing, it makes three conceptual advances in the exploration of heterogeneous entrepreneurship. First, in examining why individuals become self-employed, the paper moves beyond classic efforts to understand entrepreneurship through binary push/pull mechanisms in models of occupational choice. Instead, the analysis demonstrates the importance of risk in entrepreneurship and paid employment, highlighting the multiple pathways into solo self-employment as opportunities and constraints coalesce in individual's lives. Secondly, in considering how the solo self-employed think about business, the research breaks through conventional definitions of entrepreneurship to demonstrate that solo self-employment involves a distinctively entrepreneurial subjectivity and practices. Thirdly, by investigating the consequences of solo self-employment, the findings transcend dualist interpretations of self-employment as the realm of entrepreneurial wealth or economic precarity, highlighting instead a security–precarity continuum in immediate and long-term outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The literature on Pacific Island business activity is relatively small. Acknowledging the dilemma associated with a statistical approach, progress can be achieved by employing a qualitative research approach. The paper discusses traditional talanoa as a method for collecting information about Pacific businesses. Talanoa is a popular and preferred means of communication that captures the traditions and protocols of the Pacific Islands. Its merits are discussed here alongside that of both formal and informal interviews. Much can be gained from the use of talanoa for research into the business and accounting practices of Pacific businesses, as written records capturing their experiences and practices are often not recorded. Such knowledge is entrenched in an oral history and in the stories of their journey. Based on talanoa sessions with Tongan businesses in Auckland New Zealand, the paper seeks to establish the appropriateness of talanoa as an alternative method for collecting information from Pacific Island people. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides a comparative perspective of pathways to entrepreneurship among Hispanic (mostly Mexican), Korean, non-Hispanic white, and Middle-Eastern/South-Asian entrepreneurs to identify common and unique circumstances conducive to business ownership. A stratified random sample business survey conducted in an immigrant neighborhood in Chicago is analyzed, to determine whether employment in a co-ethnic firm and informal self-employment serve as a stepladder to business ownership. The blocked mobility hypothesis is examined by considering self-reports about reasons for becoming self-employed. Results show that the informal economy is a common pathway to steady self-employment for Hispanics, whereas entry through employment in a co-ethnic firm was more common among Koreans than immigrants from Mexico, the Middle East, and South Asia. Koreans see business ownership as a way to overcome blocked mobility, but virtually all desire their offspring to acquire good jobs in the open labor market. For Hispanics, business ownership is not solely an instrument for overcoming discrimination, but rather a strategy for intergenerational mobility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]