Deconstructing self-organisation in microentrepreneurship: a social embeddedness perspective

Simba, A ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0276-8211, Wang, Y ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1765-7490 and del Olmo García, F, 2023. Deconstructing self-organisation in microentrepreneurship: a social embeddedness perspective. Journal of Business Research, 162: 113916. ISSN 0148-2963

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Abstract

Research overemphasises the facilitative role of institutions in cluster formation. It overlooks the collective actions by microentrepreneurs when confronting issues of microentrepreneurship in a weak institutional environment. Drawing from a social embeddedness perspective in entrepreneurship, we analyse the mechanisms underlying their methods of self-organisation for collective action, particularly in cluster formation. Interviews involving 19 microentrepreneurs in rural China revealed that they self-organised to form self-serving clusters by engaging in small-scale entrepreneurial acts of reciprocal and cooperative behaviours, solidarity, camaraderie, and by adopting Chinese business ideologies. Such an understanding contributes to research on clusters, as it reveals ways in which microentrepreneurs in a weak institutional environment leverage localised economic, social, and cultural forces to collectively form self-serving clusters. This foregrounds the role of microentrepreneurs in establishing a socioeconomic equilibrium in such an environment and it holds social, academic, and policy implications.

Item Type: Journal article
Publication Title: Journal of Business Research
Creators: Simba, A., Wang, Y. and del Olmo García, F.
Publisher: Elsevier
Date: July 2023
Volume: 162
ISSN: 0148-2963
Identifiers:
Number
Type
10.1016/j.jbusres.2023.113916
DOI
1749502
Other
Rights: © 2023 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Inc. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
Divisions: Schools > Nottingham Business School
Record created by: Laura Ward
Date Added: 12 Apr 2023 10:24
Last Modified: 12 Apr 2023 10:24
URI: https://irep.ntu.ac.uk/id/eprint/48715

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