Structures of exclusion from enterprise finance

Business start-up is promoted to the labour-market disadvantaged internationally. This policy increasingly draws on the concept of social inclusion. In this paper we define ‘enterprise inclusion’ policy as situating the chance to start a viable business as a right and supporting the multiply disadvantaged to overcome strong barriers to enterprise. We draw on the resource-based view of entrepreneurship to argue that viable business ownership is contingent on access to resources. We explore how access to a primary business resource—start-up finance—relates to intersecting social disadvantages. We report a complex pattern of financial exclusion. Rather than supporting the concept of interconnecting yet separate social divisions, as argued under social inclusion theory, this supports a class-based interpretation of exclusion from enterprise finance. New research and policy agendas are outlined.