Journal of Developmental Entrepreneurship

The aim of this study is to gain an insight on how bricolage is used as a method of innovation in a resource scarce context. Previous studies of entrepreneurship have emphasized the significance of bricolage especially as a way to mobilize resources. Although seen to be essential when entrepreneurs are facing resource constraints, no attention has been paid to bricolage in the context of local entrepreneurs in developing countries. This study is based on the analysis of innovation processes of Kenyan innovator-entrepreneurs who are designing low-cost renewable energy solutions for rural people at the Base of the Pyramid (BOP). In this study, three different types of bricolage were especially recognized: a social mindset combined with resourcefulness; making do with resources at hand; and improvization as way of proceeding. This research provides empirical evidence on how bricolage is used in different parts of the innovation process. The paper contributes significantly to the emerging discussion on innovation and entrepreneurship in the context of a developing country.

The purpose of this paper is to explore an ongoing application of the entrepreneurial method applied to the problem of food security in the developing world as an alternative logic. Food production and marketing channels in the developing world are often based on scientific logic starting with an ideal outcome and then strategically designing a plan to achieve it. This study is unique in that it describes the application of an entrepreneurial approach to food product and marketing in less developed nations. A field study is used to illustrate how entrepreneurship is being harnessed to help build a more efficient and effective agricultural value chain in Papua New Guinea (PNG) based on a more entrepreneurial approach. Value chain analysis uses effectual logic to leverage innovation and create value for the consumer, the organization and society; thereby enhancing food security for the desperately poor in PNG. The use of the entrepreneurial method is offered as an alternative model for future international aid interventions and policy.

This article studies the relationship between governance and entrepreneurship, with a specific focus on Lebanon. In Lebanon, fragility and hybridity — manifested in violent conflict and sectarian oligopolies — undermine entrepreneurial activities, among others through its impact on electricity supply. It is found here that hybrid governance results in inflated electricity prices and reduced electricity reliability, undermining business competitiveness and limiting innovative entrepreneurship. The article's contributions lie in providing a deeper understanding of entrepreneurship in fragile states and showing not merely that, but precisely how, governance matters for developmental entrepreneurship.

Poor entrepreneurs in developing countries are trapped at subsistence level. This study attempts to understand how survival entrepreneurial clusters can evolve into innovative industrial networks. By conceptualizing survival entrepreneurship cluster evolution, this research focuses on alternative binary paths of either the advance or decline at each juncture of cluster evolutionary trajectory and identifies factors that determine evolution direction. The conceptual model is further developed as it applied to a cluster case in China. This study suggests which mechanisms and factors allow a cluster to adapt, to avoid stagnation, decline, or death, and to rejuvenate at each transformational juncture.

Much of our understanding concerning minority-owned firms is based on nascent entrepreneurial businesses. Therefore, it is difficult to answer the question of how a minority-owned firm's age and size may influence the social capital derived from a minority business network. We utilize a resource-dependence perspective to hypothesize that the social capital derived from participation in a minority business network will be negatively related to the minority-owned firm's age and size. We find that firm size (as measured by revenue and number of employees) is negatively related with social capital derived from the minority business network. Our findings may help minority business owners understand the relative value of membership in minority business networks before committing limited resources.

This article explores the impact of financial strategy, by gender, on firm performance using data from the Panel Study of Entrepreneurial Dynamics (PSED). Our findings reveal that financial strategies do have an impact on performance and that female and male entrepreneurs use different financial strategies. Our findings also show no significant performance differences in female- versus male-owned firms in the earliest years of the firm, although significant differences did emerge in the later years. Finally, our findings attest to the dynamic and "cumulative" effect of financial strategy.

Diaspora networks' role in supporting and stimulating entrepreneurial activities in Sub-Saharan African (SSA) economies need hardly be elaborated. For instance, some SSA countries have established government agencies to encourage diasporas to help local communities and provide policy advice. At the 2003 Extra-Ordinary Summit of the Assembly of Heads of State and Governments, the African Union (AU) amended Article Three of its Constitutive Act to invite and encourage African diaspora's active participation. However, institutional changes associated with diaspora networks are a phenomenon that has been noted but poorly understood. This paper addresses a little examined intersection between the diaspora literature and the institutions literature. We examine the contexts, mechanisms and processes associated with diaspora networks' roles as institutional change agents in the context of entrepreneurial behaviors in SSA economies. Our dependent variables are measures of changes in institutions associated with diaspora network. We have related our analysis mainly to the nature of the diaspora networks compared to other networks, characteristics of the environments in which diaspora networks are embedded in and operate, and some activities, mechanisms and modes that serve to transmit institutions from the host country to the homeland.