Evaluating competing theories of street entrepreneurship: some lessons from a study of street vendors in Bangalore, India

Conventionally, street entrepreneurs were either seen as a residue from a pre-modern era that is gradually disappearing (modernisation theory), or an endeavour into which marginalised populations are driven out of necessity in the absence of alternative ways of securing a livelihood (structuralist theory). In recent years, however, participation in street entrepreneurship has been re-read either as a rational economic choice (neo-liberal theory) or as conducted for cultural reasons (post-modern theory). The aim of this paper is to evaluate critically these competing explanations for participation in street entrepreneurship. To do this, face-to-face interviews were conducted with 871 street entrepreneurs in the Indian city of Bangalore during 2010 concerning their reasons for participation in street entrepreneurship. The finding is that no one explanation suffices. Some 12?% explain their participation in street entrepreneurship as necessity-driven, 15?% as traditional ancestral activity, 56?% as a rational economic choice and 17?% as pursued for social or lifestyle reasons. The outcome is a call to combine these previously rival explanations in order to develop a richer and more nuanced theorisation of the multifarious motives for street entrepreneurship in emerging market economies.     

New entrepreneurship: lessons from the past,perspectives for the future

A general theoretical framework for studying new entrepreneurship is presented. The four dimensions of the framework are: the starter and the new venture, the external environment, the dynamics of the process, and the managerial behavior. For making the transition from the past to the future, a three-step model has been elaborated: analytical approach, policy approach, and adjustment pattern. The first approach deals with causal relationships and interactions between the different actors involved within the system. In the second step basic characteristics of an optimal start-up situation are to be identified. The adjustment pattern describes the specific measures to be taken to bridge the gap between actual and optimal situations. The perspectives for the future are formulated as a dozen suggestions. A distinction is made between four different target groups. The corresponding headings are: what researchers should do, what starters should do, what supporting infrastructure should do, what public authorities should do.