Purpose – This article explores the criminal workplace activities of both employers and employees in Ukrainian enterprises. It challenges traditional definitions of corruption and suggests that the practices that can be observed fit into the category of organised crime because of the country's...

The recognition that many inhabitants across the world rely on the informal economy for their livelihood has led to a refutation that this sphere is a leftover from pre-capitalism and the advent of a range of competing theorizations of the informal economy as either reinforcing the disparities...

Although there is growing recognition that many entrepreneurs start-up trading partially or wholly off-the-books, few have evaluated whether the character of this hidden enterprise culture varies spatially. To begin to do so, this paper evaluates whether and how the nature of off-the-books...

How many entrepreneurs start-up their business ventures conducting some or all of their trade in the informal economy? The aim of this paper is to answer this key question that has been seldom addressed using data from 600 face-to-face structured interviews conducted in Ukraine in late 2005 and...

This article provides a critical evaluation of the competing discourses that variously represent the informal economy as a residue or leftover of some pre-capitalist era, a by-product of a new type of emergent formal economy, an alternative mode of work organization or a complement to the formal...

Even though entrepreneurs are commonly depicted as risk-takers, little evaluation has occurred of whether they weigh up the costs of being caught and the level of punishments, and engage in off-the-books working practices. The aim of this paper is to evaluate the degree to which entrepreneurs...