Entrepreneurship, the informal economy and rural communities

Colin Williams

Journal of Enterprising Communities: People and Places in the Global Economy, 2011, vol. 5, issue 2, 145-157

Abstract: Purpose - This paper aims to evaluate whether early‐stage entrepreneurs and the established self‐employed in rural communities trade off‐the‐books and whether this tendency varies across deprived and affluent rural localities. Design/methodology/approach - Face‐to‐face interviews were conducted with 350 households in both affluent and deprived rural communities in England. Findings - In both the affluent and deprived rural communities surveyed, wholly legitimate enterprises represent just the tip of the iceberg. Beneath the surface is a large hidden enterprise culture of both registered businesses trading off‐the‐books and unregistered wholly off‐the‐books enterprises. However, the preponderance of both early‐stage entrepreneurs, as well as the established self‐employed to trade off‐the‐books is greater in deprived than affluent rural communities, intimating that deprived rural communities are perhaps relatively more enterprising and entrepreneurial than is currently recognised. Research limitations/implications - These findings are based on a small‐scale study of five English rural communities. Further studies are now required to evaluate whether similar findings are replicated elsewhere. Practical implications - The paper reveals that legitimising the hidden enterprise culture in deprived rural communities could be an important but so far untapped means of promoting enterprise and economic development. Originality/value - Evaluates the extent of informal entrepreneurship in rural communities and how this varies spatially.

Keywords: Entrepreneurialism; Enterprise economics; Economic development; Rural economies; England (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.110 ... d&utm_campaign=repec (text/html)
https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.110 ... d&utm_campaign=repec (application/pdf)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers

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:eme:jecpps:v:5:y:2011:i:2:p:145-157

DOI: 10.1108/17506201111131578

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Enterprising Communities: People and Places in the Global Economy is currently edited by Prof Leo Dana and Andrea Caputo

More articles in Journal of Enterprising Communities: People and Places in the Global Economy from Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Emerald Support ().