Aspirations to grow: when micro- and informal enterprises in the street food sector speak for themselves

Abstract

The street food sector in Sub-Saharan Africa is a source of affordable and nutritious meals for the urban poor, while also being an important source of income for the women who dominate this sector. Despite the importance of this sector, many micro-and informal enterprises are labelled as "survivalist", beyond the reach of common development policies, which give priority to so-called growth-oriented enterprises. When given the chance to speak for themselves, do enterprises express any aspirations to grow? Contrary to the literature, our findings show that necessitydriven enterprises do aspire to grow and that this is true for both those owned by men and women. Using contextual interaction theory, this paper explains why it is possible for previous authors to come to such a different conclusion.

Micro-entrepreneurship, sustainable development goal one and cultural expectations of Ghanaian women

“…Create sound policy frameworks at the national, regional and international levels, based on propoor and gender-sensitive development strategies, to support accelerated investment in poverty eradication actions JEEE 13,1 entrepreneurship directly benefits the vulnerable segment of every social group by providing an avenue for the women to earn an income mostly in the informal sector (Vossenberg, 2013;Knox et al, 2019), despite various challenges as work-life balance, limited government support and high cost of business operation (Ghouse et al, 2019). Microentrepreneurship has been revealed to bring most female-owned businesses out of the survivalist level to the mainstream economy (Vossenberg, 2013).…”

Understanding Consumers’ Perspectives on Nutritious Food Products: Testing Phone-Based Approaches for Collecting Customer Insights

“…However, these SMEs often lack the technical know-how, financial capital, and market information that would enable them to profitably increase the accessibility, desirability, and quality of safe, nutritious foods to lower-income consumers (5)(6)(7)(8)(9). Such barriers can be particularly high for women-owned SMEs (10).…”

Deciphering Food Hawkerpreneurship: Challenges and success factors in franchising street food businesses in Malaysia

“…Knox et al.’s (2019) study on micro- and informal enterprises in the street food sector in South Africa indicated that the vast majority do aspire to grow their enterprise, despite constraints on investing or developing their business. It can be difficult to encourage people to take up entrepreneurship in places where higher paid jobs are widely available, which is often perceived as more stable income compared to high risk entrepreneurship.…”

“…It can be difficult to encourage people to take up entrepreneurship in places where higher paid jobs are widely available, which is often perceived as more stable income compared to high risk entrepreneurship. Instead of being a marginalized branch of the economy in some societies and cultures, that may face being phased out in the advance of modernity, the street food sector can be a source of economic growth and a way for development policies to reach the women who dominate it (Knox et al., 2019). These authors also argue that the self-employed in this informal sector should be valued for the social safety net that they provide for poor communities and the opportunity for the few to pursue successful entrepreneurship ventures.…”