This paper evaluates critically the assumption that entrepreneurs who start-up their business ventures operating wholly or partially off-the-books are engaged in commercial entrepreneurship. Reporting evidence from a 2005-2006 survey involving face-to-face interviews with 298 informal...

Purpose – This paper evaluates critically the competing theories of informal entrepreneurship that variously represent such endeavour as a residue from a previous mode of accumulation (modernisation theory), a direct by-product of contemporary capitalism and survival strategy for those...

The aim of this paper is to evaluate the variable impacts of the informal economy on businesses and employment relations in South East Europe. Evidence is reported from the 2009 World Bank Enterprise Survey which interviewed 4,720 businesses located in South East Europe. The finding is not only...

PurposeAlthough there is emerging an understanding that many entrepreneurs conduct some or all of their transactions off-the-books, there has so far been little attempt to consider what can and should be done about entrepreneurship in the informal economy. The aim of this paper is to bridge this...

In recent decades, the field of entrepreneurship studies has become increasingly interested in the relationship between entrepreneurship and the informal economy. This paper reviews this burgeoning sub-field of entrepreneurship studies that recognizes how entrepreneurs do not always conduct...

It is now recognized that many entrepreneurs operate wholly or partially in the informal economy. Harnessing this hidden enterprise culture by facilitating its formalization is therefore a potentially effective and innovative means of promoting economic development and growth. To start...

To evaluate whether and how the prevalence and nature of off-the-books entrepreneurship varies across deprived and affluent neighborhoods in an advanced economy, face-to-face interviews are here reported conducted with 511 households in English affluent and deprived urban neighborhoods. The...

Since the turn of the millennium, a small but growing stream of the entrepreneurship literature has drawn attention to how a large proportion of entrepreneurs start-up their enterprises operating in the hidden economy on a wholly or partially off-the-books basis. This paper evaluates critically...

Despite a widespread recognition in the mainstream entrepreneurship literature that many legitimate entrepreneurs do not pursue purely profit-driven commercial goals, the small but burgeoning literature on entrepreneurship in the informal economy has assumed that entrepreneurs operating wholly...