Sight unseen: The visibility paradox of entrepreneurship in an informal economy

IF 7.7 1区 管理学 Q1 BUSINESS
Robert Nason , Siddharth Vedula , Joel Bothello , Sophie Bacq , Andrew Charman
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引用次数: 0

Abstract

In many informal economies, entrepreneurs face a visibility paradox: increasing visibility to resource-granting stakeholders simultaneously increases exposure to resource-extracting stakeholders. To investigate this phenomenon, we leverage a unique, hand-collected, small-area census dataset of firms in the township of Delft in Cape Town, South Africa, providing rare insight into a population of otherwise unobserved firms. Through an abductive, multimethod approach, we address three interrelated research questions: (i) How do informal economy entrepreneurs make their firms visible? (ii) Which informal economy entrepreneurs make their firms visible? (iii) How does firm visibility relate to firm performance? Our analysis identifies distinct dimensions of authority- and community-oriented visibility and introduces the concept of selective visibility, which refers to making a firm visible to certain stakeholders (e.g., community members) but not others (e.g., authorities). Using a social embeddedness lens, we find that while highly embedded entrepreneurs are more associated with invisibility, less embedded entrepreneurs are more associated with community-oriented selective visibility. The QCA results also indicate a configurational relationship such that visibility's association with performance varies with an entrepreneur's level of embeddedness. As a whole, our study builds theory regarding the taken-for-granted concept of firm visibility and provides important insights that are generative for entrepreneurship research in informal economies and other difficult-to-access settings.

看不见:非正式经济中企业家精神的可见性悖论
在许多非正规经济中,企业家面临着可见性悖论:增加对资源提供利益相关者的可见性同时增加了对资源提取利益相关者的暴露。为了调查这一现象,我们利用了南非开普敦代尔夫特镇的一个独特的、手工收集的小区域公司普查数据集,提供了对其他未被观察到的公司人口的罕见见解。通过诱导性的多方法方法,我们解决了三个相互关联的研究问题:(i)非正规经济企业家如何使他们的公司可见?哪些非正规经济企业家使他们的公司可见?(iii)企业知名度如何与企业绩效相关?我们的分析确定了面向权威和面向社区的可见性的不同维度,并引入了选择性可见性的概念,这是指使公司对某些利益相关者(例如,社区成员)可见,而对其他人(例如,权威)不可见。利用社会嵌入性的视角,我们发现,虽然高度嵌入的企业家更多地与不可见性联系在一起,但嵌入程度较低的企业家更多地与面向社区的选择性可见性联系在一起。QCA结果还表明了一种配置关系,即可见性与绩效的关联随着企业家的嵌入程度而变化。总的来说,我们的研究建立了关于企业可见性这一理所当然的概念的理论,并为非正式经济和其他难以进入的环境中的创业研究提供了重要的见解。
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来源期刊
CiteScore
16.70
自引率
6.90%
发文量
59
审稿时长
77 days
期刊介绍: The Journal of Business Venturing: Entrepreneurship, Entrepreneurial Finance, Innovation and Regional Development serves as a scholarly platform for the exchange of valuable insights, theories, narratives, and interpretations related to entrepreneurship and its implications. With a focus on enriching the understanding of entrepreneurship in its various manifestations, the journal seeks to publish papers that (1) draw from the experiences of entrepreneurs, innovators, and their ecosystem; and (2) tackle issues relevant to scholars, educators, facilitators, and practitioners involved in entrepreneurship. Embracing diversity in approach, methodology, and disciplinary perspective, the journal encourages contributions that contribute to the advancement of knowledge in entrepreneurship and its associated domains.
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