Heterodox entrepreneurial ecosystems: Informal cross border trade and its paradoxical tensions

Eldrede T. Kahiya

Journal of Business Venturing Insights, 2025, vol. 23, issue C

Abstract: This conceptual paper aims to merge the previously separate research streams of entrepreneurial ecosystems and informal entrepreneurship. Informal cross border trade is selected as a prototype of informal entrepreneurship. The paper makes three contributions. First, drawing from orthodox entrepreneurial ecosystems, it dissects participants, places, policies, processes, products, proponents, and push-pull considerations underpinning informal cross border trade. Second, it underscores the cultural-, ideological-, otherness-, and role and norm heterodoxies evident in informal cross border trade. Third, the paper describes four paradoxes - bribery, empowerment, regulation, and visibility - which maintain the heterodox entrepreneurial ecosystem in balance. With this, the conceptual paper opens a new line of enquiry on heterodox entrepreneurial ecosystems, defined as juxtapositions of actors, factors, ideologies, and places facilitating productive entrepreneurship through balancing paradoxical tensions.

Keywords: Africa; Entrepreneurial ecosystem; Everyday entrepreneurship; Heterodox; Informal cross border trade; Informal entrepreneurship; Paradox (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jobuve:v:23:y:2025:i:c:s2352673425000174

DOI: 10.1016/j.jbvi.2025.e00530

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