Entrepreneurial values,hybridity and entrepreneurial capital: Insights from Johannesburg's informal sector

This study explored entrepreneurial values in Johannesburg's informal sector. Using responses to open-ended questions in a survey of 359 informal traders, the author analysed the way Western and indigenous (African) values mix to form hybrid values. The resulting understanding of hybridity makes it apparent that these traders exhibit both kinds of value in varying forms. In this paper the implications of the emergence of hybrid values, as a form of entrepreneurial capital, are explored using Bourdieu's notion of embodied capital. On this basis it is proposed that hybrid values are of material benefit to traders through conversion into other forms of capital, such as financial capital. More research is required, however, to investigate further how hybrid values translate into material gain in practice.