Narrow Results

The traditional macroeconomic approach to poverty alleviation in neighborhoods and communities is to use housing development and job-creation programs to address the income and the opportunity gaps. Entrepreneurship is a much less used poverty alleviation strategy that, in our estimation, can have a significant effect in favorable policy environments. After a brief literature review, we highlight policy approaches that use entrepreneurship as a poverty alleviation strategy. We present several case studies from the United States as evidence of how public policy can empower an entrepreneurial ecosystem to support the self-employed and other low-income entrepreneurs. We conclude with a framework for how public policy can alleviate poverty through entrepreneurship that is generalizable in other contexts.

All other parts of the entrepreneurial ecosystem in any country are governed by the political and legal aspects of the system. This study examines the integrated effect of the entrepreneurial ecosystem’s political-legal subsystem on the performance of MSEs based on system theory and the mediating role of entrepreneurial competence, based on a resource-based view. There has been no detailed examination of the entrepreneurial ecosystem of MSEs in Africa in general, and Ethiopia in particular. Although the political-legal aspects of the entrepreneurial ecosystem have a major effect on both entrepreneurial competency and MSE’s performance, the relationship between entrepreneurial competencies and MSE performance was found to be insignificant. The role of entrepreneurial competency in mediating the relationships between policy and business performance and other business environments and business performance was shown to be insignificant. The study suggests that the policies designed by the government for MSEs should be flexible enough to affect other aspects of the entrepreneurial environment, such as the economic and social dimensions. Finally, additional studies in the field are encouraged to clarify the discrepancies in the findings concerning the relationships between entrepreneurial competencies and the performance of SMEs.

This article examines the effects of the Broad-based Black Economic Empowerment (BBBEE) policy on black entrepreneurship in South Africa. The BBBEE policy is a legal framework aimed at addressing historical inequalities by promoting equal opportunities and encouraging the participation of black individuals in the economy. The policy highlights include increased access to funding for previously marginalized groups to start and grow their businesses, improved market access to encourage large businesses to partner with small businesses owned by previously marginalized groups, and increased skills and development. Using the policy as a quasi-natural experiment, the study adopts a difference-in-difference estimation technique contrasting periods before and after implementation and measuring its effectiveness on black entrepreneurial entry. Results from the analysis indicate that the policy was ineffective in improving black entrepreneurship in South Africa.