IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/wodepe/v9y2018icp35-42.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Entrepreneurs, entrepreneurship and SMEs in developing economies: How subverting terminology sustains flawed policy

Author

Listed:
  • Poole, David L.

Abstract

Facilitating the emergence of a vibrant small and medium sized enterprise (SME) sector is promoted as the new development prescription for low-income countries. Academic analysis of entrepreneurs, entrepreneurship and SME sector development is characterised, though, by a lack of precision and consistency over the core terms employed. This is highly problematic. It allows obfuscation to trump insight and thus makes it extremely difficult to judge the veracity of the development prescription that is advocated or to undertake any objective assessment of the effectiveness of strategies that have been implemented. Policymakers are consequently faced with having to initiate measures that constitute little more than leaps of faith based on unproven claims and an inconsistent discourse and are therefore exposed to being influenced by a broad array of vested interests, be they vendors of microcredit, management consultants, NGOs or economists of various persuasions. This paper argues for a much-needed consistency with respect to the key terms entrepreneur, entrepreneurship and SME.

Suggested Citation

  • Poole, David L., 2018. "Entrepreneurs, entrepreneurship and SMEs in developing economies: How subverting terminology sustains flawed policy," World Development Perspectives, Elsevier, vol. 9(C), pages 35-42.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:wodepe:v:9:y:2018:i:c:p:35-42
    DOI: 10.1016/j.wdp.2018.04.003
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2452292917302746
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.wdp.2018.04.003?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Pietro Calice & Victor M. Chando & Sofiane M. Sekioua, 2012. "Working Paper 146 - Bank Financing to Small and Medium Enterprises in East Africa: Findings of a Survey in Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia," Working Paper Series 377, African Development Bank.
    2. William J. Baumol, 2013. "The Microtheory of Innovative Entrepreneurship," Journal of Economic Sociology, National Research University Higher School of Economics, vol. 14(3), pages 96-108.
    3. repec:bla:econom:v:38:y:1971:i:151:p:269-86 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. Alice Amsden, 2010. "Say's Law, Poverty Persistence, and Employment Neglect," Journal of Human Development and Capabilities, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 11(1), pages 57-66.
    5. Saul Estrin & Tomasz Mickiewicz & Ute Stephan, 2013. "Entrepreneurship, Social Capital, and Institutions: Social and Commercial Entrepreneurship across Nations," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, , vol. 37(3), pages 479-504, May.
    6. Meghana Ayyagari & Thorsten Beck & Asli Demirguc-Kunt, 2007. "Small and Medium Enterprises Across the Globe," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 29(4), pages 415-434, December.
    7. Jeffery S. McMullen, 2011. "Delineating the Domain of Development Entrepreneurship: A Market–Based Approach to Facilitating Inclusive Economic Growth," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, , vol. 35(1), pages 185-215, January.
    8. André van Stel & Sander Wennekers & Jolanda Hessels & Peter van der Zwan, 2012. "Global Entrepreneurship Monitor 2011 The Netherlands," Scales Research Reports A201211, EIM Business and Policy Research.
    9. James Austin & Howard Stevenson & Jane Wei–Skillern, 2006. "Social and Commercial Entrepreneurship: Same, Different, or Both?," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, , vol. 30(1), pages 1-22, January.
    10. Anisya S Thomas & Stephen L Mueller, 2000. "A Case for Comparative Entrepreneurship: Assessing the Relevance of Culture," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 31(2), pages 287-301, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Valdez Juárez, Luis Enrique & Ramos Escobar, Elva Alicia & Borboa Álvarez, Edith Patricia, 2019. "Las Capacidades Dinámicas y la Orientación Emprendedora: Fuente de Innovación y Rentabilidad en la Pyme Mexicana," Small Business International Review, Asociación Española de Contabilidad y Administración de Empresas - AECA, vol. 3(1), pages 49-66, January.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Sahasranamam, Sreevas & Nandakumar, M.K., 2020. "Individual capital and social entrepreneurship: Role of formal institutions," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 107(C), pages 104-117.
    2. Gupta, Parul & Chauhan, Sumedha & Paul, Justin & Jaiswal, M.P., 2020. "Social entrepreneurship research: A review and future research agenda," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 113(C), pages 209-229.
    3. Niklas Elert & Magnus Henrekson, 2016. "Evasive entrepreneurship," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 47(1), pages 95-113, June.
    4. Mendoza-Abarca, Karla I. & Anokhin, Sergey & Zamudio, César, 2015. "Uncovering the influence of social venture creation on commercial venture creation: A population ecology perspective," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 30(6), pages 793-807.
    5. Mark Griffiths & Jill Kickul & Sophie Bacq & Siri Terjesen, 2012. "A Dialogue with William J. Baumol: Insights on Entrepreneurship Theory and Education," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, , vol. 36(4), pages 611-625, July.
    6. Sahasranamam, Sreevas & Nandakumar, M.K. & Pereira, Vijay & Temouri, Yama, 2021. "Knowledge capital in social and commercial entrepreneurship: Investigating the role of informal institutions," Journal of International Management, Elsevier, vol. 27(1).
    7. Inmaculada Buendía-Martínez & Inmaculada Carrasco Monteagudo, 2020. "The Role of CSR on Social Entrepreneurship: An International Analysis," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(17), pages 1-22, August.
    8. Mayer-Haug, Katrin & Read, Stuart & Brinckmann, Jan & Dew, Nicholas & Grichnik, Dietmar, 2013. "Entrepreneurial talent and venture performance: A meta-analytic investigation of SMEs," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 42(6), pages 1251-1273.
    9. David Urbano & Sebastian Aparicio & Victor Querol, 2016. "Social progress orientation and innovative entrepreneurship: an international analysis," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 26(5), pages 1033-1066, December.
    10. Jeffery S. McMullen & Katrina M. Brownell & Joel Adams, 2021. "What Makes an Entrepreneurship Study Entrepreneurial? Toward A Unified Theory of Entrepreneurial Agency," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, , vol. 45(5), pages 1197-1238, September.
    11. Busch, Christian & Barkema, Harry, 2022. "Align or perish: Social enterprise network orchestration in Sub-Saharan Africa," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 37(2).
    12. Elvin Afandi & Majid Kermani & Fuad Mammadov, 2017. "Social capital and entrepreneurial process," International Entrepreneurship and Management Journal, Springer, vol. 13(3), pages 685-716, September.
    13. Etayankara Muralidharan & Saurav Pathak, 2018. "Sustainability, Transformational Leadership, and Social Entrepreneurship," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(2), pages 1-22, February.
    14. Ravindra K. Jain, 2011. "Entrepreneurial Competencies," Vision, , vol. 15(2), pages 127-152, June.
    15. Kleinhempel, Johannes & Estrin, Saul, 2024. "Realizing expectations?," MPRA Paper 120863, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    16. Adélie Ranville & Marcos Barros, 2022. "Towards Normative Theories of Social Entrepreneurship. A Review of the Top Publications of the Field," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 180(2), pages 407-438, October.
    17. Xiaoti Hu & Susan Marlow & Angelika Zimmermann & Lee Martin & Regina Frank, 2020. "Understanding Opportunities in Social Entrepreneurship: A Critical Realist Abstraction," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, , vol. 44(5), pages 1032-1056, September.
    18. Geradts, Thijs H.J. & Alt, Elisa, 2022. "Social entrepreneurial action in established organizations: Developing the concept of social intrapreneurship," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 151(C), pages 197-206.
    19. Haselip, James & Desgain, Denis & Mackenzie, Gordon, 2014. "Financing energy SMEs in Ghana and Senegal: Outcomes, barriers and prospects," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 65(C), pages 369-376.
    20. Shaker A. Zahra & Mike Wright, 2016. "Understanding the Social Role of Entrepreneurship," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 53(4), pages 610-629, June.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:wodepe:v:9:y:2018:i:c:p:35-42. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.journals.elsevier.com/world-development-perspectives .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.