Journal of Enterprising Culture

This paper explores the phenomenon of barter exchanges, which have become widespread in the United States and provide small retailers and service companies with a means of trading goods or services directly with each other. Using a case study approach in the United States, the papers examines the mechanics of barter exchanges and the advantages and disadvantages to its users in the small business sector. It then considers the spread of barter exchanges to Europe and, using a questionnaire survey, identifies a range of obstacles to the successful transfer of this US model.

A successful Russian entrepreneur was selected as a case study in order to find out if this person required any specific qualities different from those routinely attributed by academic literature to his counterpart in the West. Results reported here provide early evidence of great similarities in the typology of successful entrepreneurs in transition and market economies. Yet if the qualities required are ranged according to their importance there is a clear bias towards the ability to create or join networks and the advantage of sharing common values arising from the importance of personal contacts to obtain resources in Russia.

Von Mises famously declared that all human action, unfettered by the state is entrepreneurial. Yet curiously, it is where the state and the market collide that some of the more striking aspects of entrepreneurialism are made most visible. Most spectacularly, where governments have attempted to control currencies through both rhetoric and financial intervention, currency traders have stepped in to take advantage of the difference between the set value and the 'market' rate. As a result, high profile traders such as Soros have achieved notoriety for their calculated exploitation of the currency instability.

This battle is repeated at a more terrestrial level. A new market sector has opened up as entrepreneurial car dealers have taken advantage of the strong pound by buying Japanese automotive exotica and selling them for less than the more mundane versions command in the UK. Such moves have also been strongly opposed - Mitsubishi, for example, has traded on the rhetoric of differences in government safety standards in an attempt to curtail such trading.

Currency trading and car dealing initially appear wildly different trading environments. Yet a close reading of the accounts given by and of these entrepreneurs reveals considerable similarity in their approaches to the calculation of potential margin, entrepreneurial action, inequalities and regulation, implying a need for greater awareness of discursive resources when discussing entrepreneurship.

The introduction of the Single European Market (SEM) acted as a catalyst to internationalization activities throughout the European Union (EU). Set against the backdrop of a wider study of retail change within the SEM this industry case study examines the changing role of the independent sector within French book retailing in the face of a growing trend towards cross-border activity. The interplay between consumer culture and the dynamics of the changing structural components of the market is discussed against the backdrop of a wider EU context. Barriers and challenges as well as opportunities for international activities are examined and the respective positioning of the different types of retail capital considered. Conclusions highlight the importance of entrepreneurial style rather than the size of the firm as a driver of international activity and present a discussion of likely future trends in this market.

This case considers entrepreneurial activity in the UK bookselling sector from the 1980s to the present. The early 1980s saw individual entrepreneurs within the UK bookselling sector having the entrepreneurial vision to develop new retail formats which have significantly altered the competitive landscape. The late 1980s/early 1990s saw the consolidation of these innovative retail formats and highlights the ways in which the 'rules of the game' have been significantly altered. The mid/late 1990s introduces the spatial element more overtly , outlining the development of book 'e-tailing' by a new breed of entrepreneurs. This has served to blur the traditional market boundaries, thereby facilitating the process of internationalisation. This process has taken two main forms: physical market entry, with particularly, US retailers grounding themselves in the UK through organic growth and/or acquisition; and the more intangible Internet presence, which has the potential to render traditional conceptualisation of this sector obsolete.

The purpose of this case is to assess the long-term opportunity for Wal-Mart in the UK market. To make this assessment, the potential reaction of consumers, employees and competitors must be considered. The likely method of market entry must also be assessed.