Journal of Enterprising Culture

This study explores the factors determining the entry and stay of entrepreneurs in the informal economy in a Least Developed Country (LDC): Tanzania. Qualitative data from a focus group with six experts, and individual interviews with two experts and 15 entrepreneurs from the informal economy, were analysed. The results show that (1) necessity motivations are important for the entry and stay of entrepreneurs, as well as (2) the unattractive factors of the formal economy (e.g. degree of excessive regulations regarding high taxes)/attractive factors of the informal economy (e.g. little procedures, low capital requirements) and (3) low levels of education possessed by entrepreneurs, emerged as essential. This study enriches the literature with personal narratives of entrepreneurial activities from the micro level. Therefore, many detailed factors are revealed of the lives of entrepreneurs and experts, dealing in one way or the other with the informal economy.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship of certain characteristics of family business decision-making processes (customer orientation and open and negotiating family decision-making styles) to business and family goal achievement as mediated by emotions (family supportiveness). We undertook this study to better understand why certain family businesses make consistently better decisions than others, leading them to earn more money and have family members who are happier in their home lives. Decision theory undergirded the study development. The sample consisted of 277 family business owners, and the data are from the National Family Business Panel data set. Our results showed that if the business owners focused on customer satisfaction and product quality when making decisions, they tended to make more money and tended to be happier at home. If families made business decisions in open and negotiating ways, their members were happier about their decisions because they felt supported by the other family members. Furthermore, family members who felt good about the support they got from their family members in their business decision-making were also happier in their home lives in general.

Despite a growing scholarly interest in performance measurement systems (PMS) for collaborative networks, the literature highlights the success of co-operation from the buyer’s perspective, with far less attention given to the supplier’s perspective (Yeniyurt et al., 2014). In addition, only limited empirical research has been conducted on PMS in small and medium-sized enterprise networks (Bititci et al., 2012). This study investigates how information sharing and supplier integration in a buyer-supplier relationship (BSR) affect suppliers’ performance in the context of small firms. Information sharing includes both providing information (to a buyer) and receiving information (from a buyer). According to the results, neither BSR integration nor information sharing are associated with suppliers’ overall or financial performance. However, BSR integration showed a positive association with suppliers’ non-financial performance. Moreover, information sharing (both providing and receiving) in the innovation perspective showed a positive association with suppliers’ non-financial performance.

The aim of this article is to assess the current state of research on open innovation in SMEs to understand why and how SMEs do open innovation. Stemming from a systematic literature review of 73 articles published in peer-reviewed journals, from 1983 to 2017, we identify five main research focuses on open innovation in SMEs. Directions for future studies on open innovation in SMEs are provided in this article.