Explaining the off-the-books enterprise culture of Ukraine: reluctant or willing entrepreneurship?

Colin Williams, John Round and Peter Rodgers

International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Small Business, 2010, vol. 10, issue 2, 165-180

Abstract: In recent years, there has been a growing realisation that beyond the realm of legitimate entrepreneurship is a large, hidden enterprise culture composed of entrepreneurs conducting some or all of their trade off-the-books. Until now, however, few have evaluated how many entrepreneurs start-up their ventures trading off-the-books and why they do so. Reporting face-to-face interviews conducted in Ukraine during 2005-2006 with 331 entrepreneurs, the finding is not only that the vast majority (90%) operate partially or wholly off-the-books, but also that they are not all driven by necessity, as a last resort and as a survival strategy into entrepreneurship. Revealing how many are willing rather than reluctant entrepreneurs; and that even those who were initially reluctant and ventured into it out of necessity, became more willing entrepreneurs over time as their business became established – the paper concludes by discussing the implications of these findings for both further research and public policy.

Keywords: entrepreneurship; necessity entrepreneurs; enterprise culture; informal economy; shadow economy; underground sector; tax compliance; Ukraine; off-the-books; reluctant entrepreneurs; public policy. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2010
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.inderscience.com/link.php?id=33107 (text/html)
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:ids:ijesbu:v:10:y:2010:i:2:p:165-180

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Small Business from Inderscience Enterprises Ltd
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sarah Parker ().