How entrepreneurial behaviors manifest in non-traditional, heterodox contexts: Exploration of the Daigou phenomenon

Charmaine Glavas, Gary Mortimer, Han Ding, Louise Grimmer, Oscar Vorobjovas-Pinta and Martin Grimmer

Journal of Business Venturing Insights, 2023, vol. 19, issue C

Abstract: Entrepreneurship is multifaceted and there is considerable acknowledgement of the relevance of human agency and individual behavior – since entrepreneurship has proven fundamentally personal. While entrepreneurial behaviors are traditionally aligned with high growth, start-up firms, an evolving body of research recognizes that entrepreneurial behaviors can manifest in non-traditional, ‘heterodox’ contexts. One such context is the Daigou phenomenon. Daigou translates to ‘buying on one's behalf’ – Daigou serve as important ‘middlemen’ – connecting Chinese customers with Western brands by deviating from accepted or orthodox standards or beliefs to exploit free-market networks and engage in cross-border exporting. Daigou, in the context of this research functions as a novel heterodox backdrop to probe manifestations of entrepreneurial behavior, thus identifying how entrepreneurial actors behave ‘entrepreneurially’ in heterodox settings. Our review of the literature delivers three meaningful contributions. Firstly, the findings contribute by advancing understanding of entrepreneurial behaviors in non-traditional and heterodox contexts. Secondly, by unveiling and incorporating new insights to the entrepreneurial behavior literature by integrating Daigou as a novel context for advancing understanding of meaningful heterodoxies. And thirdly, contributing back to the marketing literature by integrating insights from entrepreneurial behavior to inform conceptualizations of Daigou.

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Entrepreneurial behaviors; Heterodox; Meaningful heterodoxy; Daigou; China (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352673423000148
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jobuve:v:19:y:2023:i:c:s2352673423000148

DOI: 10.1016/j.jbvi.2023.e00385

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Business Venturing Insights is currently edited by Dimo Dimov

More articles in Journal of Business Venturing Insights from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().