Purpose This study aims to examine how micro-entrepreneurs evaluate bribery in a high-corruption transition economy. Focusing on the Kyrgyz Republic, it analyzes two mechanisms shaping entrepreneurs’ evaluative acceptance of bribery: public officials’ initiation of bribe requests, “initiator’s advantage” and perceived social norms among peer entrepreneurs. By integrating resource dependence theory and collective action theory, this study explains how institutional power asymmetries and normative expectations jointly influence entrepreneurs’ evaluative acceptance of bribery in bureaucratic interactions. Design/methodology/approach This study uses a vignette-based factorial survey experiment with a 2 × 2 design. Data were collected from 483 micro-entrepreneurs operating in four major bazaars in Bishkek. Vignettes systematically varied whether a public official initiated a bribe request and whether bribery was described as common among peers. Respondents evaluated the acceptability of a hypothetical entrepreneur’s decision to pay a bribe. Regression analysis was used to estimate treatment effects, with extensive balance checks and subsample analyses. Findings Both information framings significantly increase respondents’ evaluative acceptance of the hypothetical entrepreneur’s decision to pay. Official initiation raises evaluative acceptance modestly, while perceived pro-bribery social norms exert a substantially larger effect. These effects remain robust after controlling for demographic and business characteristics and do not vary by gender, age or education. The interaction between the two framings is not statistically significant. The findings indicate that evaluative acceptance of entrepreneurial bribery is shaped simultaneously by dependence on discretionary officials and by socially reinforced expectations about peer behavior. Originality/value This study provides experimental evidence on entrepreneurial bribery from a post-Soviet transition economy. It advances the literature by integrating resource dependence theory and collective action theory at the microlevel, demonstrating how institutional pressure and social norms shape microentrepreneurs’ evaluations of corrupt exchanges. Methodologically, it moves beyond correlational survey data by isolating causal effects of situational cues using a vignette experiment. The findings highlight that effective anti-corruption policies must address both bureaucratic discretion and entrenched social norms among entrepreneurs.
Purpose This study aims to explain how family-based coordination resources support post-crisis change by distinguishing organizational resilience from post-crisis reinvention. It tests whether family embeddedness, family labour reliance and informal family governance predict later resilience and whether digitalization strengthens the resilience−reinvention relationship in Saudi micro and small family enterprises. Design/methodology/approach A two-wave survey with an exact 70-day individual lag produced an analytic sample of 318 firms. Time 1 measured family resources, digitalization, COVID shock severity and baseline outcomes; Time 2 measured resilience and reinvention. Primary models in Mplus 8.10 used MLR, FIML and autoregressive controls. Indirect-effect intervals came from a separate 5,000-replication ML bootstrap, and the latent resilience x digitalization interaction was estimated separately under TYPE = RANDOM. Findings All three family resources were positively associated with Time 2 resilience, but their direct paths to reinvention were small and nonsignificant. Their indirect associations through resilience were significant. Resilience and digitalization were positively associated with reinvention, and the resilience−reinvention relationship strengthened as digitalization increased. Because resilience and reinvention were contemporaneous at Time 2, the conditional indirect pattern is interpreted associationally. Originality/value This study develops a staged conditional-process explanation: family resources supply coordination capacity for continuity, while digitalization strengthens the conversion of preserved capacity into renewal. The Saudi setting makes this mechanism theoretically salient because kin-based coordination and informal governance coexist with institutional modernization and rapid SME digitalization.
Purpose This paper aims to investigate the indirect relationships by which family business involvement affects Vietnamese students’ entrepreneurial intentions via perceived parental entrepreneurial rewards (PPER), and the moderating role of autonomy, using social cognitive theory (SCT) and self-determination theory (SDT) within small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in Vietnam, an emerging economy. Design/methodology/approach The study used a quantitative research approach with a sample of 305 university students across the nation and analyzed the data using partial least squares structural equation modeling. Findings The results show positive direct effects of family business involvement on entrepreneurial intention, and an indirect effect through PPER. Moreover, autonomy acts both as a strengthening moderator on the positive effect of PPER in entrepreneurial intention and a weakening moderator on the direct effect of family business involvement in entrepreneurial intention. Originality/value This study advances contextual theorizing in family business research by shifting the focus from examining whether family business involvement encourages entrepreneurial intention to explaining why and under what conditions this relationship occurs in emerging markets. By identifying PPER as a transgenerational value transmission mechanism and integrating SCT and SDT to incorporate autonomy, the study provides a richer explanation of entrepreneurial intention among students from family-owned SMEs in an emerging economy. The findings also reinforce the transgenerational entrepreneurship perspective by showing that entrepreneurial values can be transmitted across generations through independent entrepreneurial aspirations rather than business succession alone, thereby reflecting strategic reinvention in emerging economies like Vietnam. Practical implications are offered for families, educational institutions and policymakers seeking to foster entrepreneurship among Gen Z.
Purpose This study aims to offer a comprehensive bibliometric analysis of global scientific literature on street vendors. Although there has been an increase in publications in the field of street vending and street entrepreneurship in recent years, this study attempts to assess publishing trends, patterns of scholarly collaboration, thematic focus areas and overall research impact, thereby conducting a literature review of key empirical studies to understand the definition, legality and challenges associated with street vending. This study seeks to create a robust conceptual and empirical framework to facilitate the progression of future research in this under-examined yet essential aspect of urban informal economies. Design/methodology/approach To thoroughly examine this topic, this study uses the Bibliometric VOSviewer 1.6.20 and the biblioshiny software for a bibliometric analysis, using Elsevier-Scopus as the database covering literature of the past 25 years from 2000 to 2025. The results were represented and discussed with the following approaches: references (research paper), countries, keywords, authors and institutions, and the key findings were graphically represented. Findings The findings underline the relevance of interdisciplinary approaches. The majority of contemporary research on street vendors and street entrepreneurs is rooted in public policy and urban planning, integrating bibliometric analysis and a systematic literature review. Originality/value This study demonstrates originality as it is one of the first studies to use a bibliometric analysis with a systematic approach to provide a detailed account of the state of the literature on street vendors and street entrepreneurs at a global level over more than 24 years. This paper contributed as a comprehensive global-level synthesis, identifying major conceptual shifts, dominant research clusters and emerging directions. This advancement would strengthen the originality claim.
Purpose This study aims to examine how entrepreneurship education, AI literacy, Technology Readiness and perceived resource scarcity are associated with university students’ AI-enabled micro-entrepreneurial opportunity enactment in a resource-constrained emerging-economy setting. Design/methodology/approach Drawing on Entrepreneurial Action Theory and Technology Readiness research, the study analysed survey data from 450 university students in Nigeria. Partial least squares structural equation modelling was used to assess the proposed relationships and fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis examined alternative configurations associated with high and low levels of AI-enabled micro-entrepreneurial opportunity enactment. Findings Entrepreneurship education and AI literacy were positively associated with Technology Readiness. Technology Readiness was positively associated with AI-enabled micro-entrepreneurial opportunity enactment and mediated the associations of entrepreneurship education and AI literacy with that outcome. Perceived resource scarcity was negatively associated with opportunity enactment but strengthened the positive association between Technology Readiness and opportunity enactment. The configurational analysis further indicated that high opportunity enactment can emerge through multiple combinations of educational, technological and contextual conditions, whereas configurations associated with low opportunity enactment were not simple inverses of high-outcome pathways. Originality/value The study extends Entrepreneurial Action Theory by identifying Technology Readiness as a digitally mediated mechanism that enables entrepreneurial and AI-related capabilities to become practically consequential. It also shows that AI-enabled entrepreneurial participation depends on more than access to intelligent tools: students require entrepreneurial capability, AI literacy, practical readiness to engage with technology and conditions that reduce resource-related barriers to action.
