The motives of off-the-books entrepreneurs: necessity- or opportunity-driven?

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Abstract

In recent years, it has become common to represent entrepreneurs as either necessity- or opportunity-driven. Drawing upon face-to-face interviews in England with 70 entrepreneurs trading wholly or partially off-the-books, this paper evaluates critically this dichotomous representation. The finding is that squeezing the motives of off-the-books entrepreneurs into one side or the other of this dichotomy not only over-simplifies their rationales since both necessity and opportunity motives are often involved but also obfuscates how their motives change over time. The outcome is a call to replace this either/or depiction with a richer and more nuanced both/and understanding of off-the-books entrepreneurs that recognises their diverse and dynamic motives.

Keywords

Necessity entrepreneurs Opportunity entrepreneurs Informal economy Shadow economy Enterprise culture England 
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Copyright information

© Springer Science + Business Media, LLC 2008

Authors and Affiliations

  1. 1.Public Policy Management SchoolUniversity of SheffieldSheffieldUK

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