This paper analyses the effect of the entrepreneurial experience of street vending on the multidimensional poverty of vendors in Colombo, Sri Lanka. The conceptual model suggests that multidimensional poverty depends on four factors: business support, socioeconomic, street vendor status and demographic. We use partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) to analyse Likert scale surveys and Leximancer to develop a thematic understanding of open-ended probes from 105 street vendors. The findings indicate a significant relationship between business support, socioeconomic factors, indicating that while street vending influences certain aspects of multidimensional poverty, it does not fully resolve multidimensional poverty, with different experiences for males and females. We contribute to a better understanding of the factors that influence the effect of street vending on the multidimensional poverty of vendors, and by mobilizing our theory framework we contribute to showing that inclusive policy interventions are needed for female street vendors to affect multidimensional poverty.
Business imitation is presented as a core characteristic of necessity entrepreneurship, driven by severe scarcity. However, why do entrepreneurs operating under similar conditions then engage in different forms of imitation adapted to their scarcity contexts? Based on extensive fieldwork in South Africa and Papua, we explore when entrepreneurs engage in replicative imitation versus adaptive imitation. Drawing on the psychology of scarcity, we theorize how engaging in these different forms of imitation is influenced by perceived scarcity and how some entrepreneurs, through spatiotemporal separation of constraints, mitigate scarcity's cognitive effects.
Entrepreneurial Ecosystems (EEs) and their orchestrators are recognized as supportive of SMEs internationalization by playing on SMEs network embeddedness. While digitalization reshapes SMEs internationalization trajectories, fuels the rise of nested entrepreneurial ecosystems, and encourages the dispersion of orchestrators, the way it transforms EEs' orchestrators' agency in supporting SMEs internationalization remains underexplored. To address the above research gap, we conducted an embedded qualitative case study centred on a (digitally) mature EE, composed of 7 orchestrators, active in 3 nested sub-EEs. We find that digital technologies support both inward and outward-oriented orchestration agency, through interaction and learning conditions phygitalization, inter-EE modularization and orchestration, and distributed international tie activation. By unpacking these three mechanisms associated to three network embeddedness dynamics driven by EEs digital orchestration, we enrich and extend the Network Theory of Internationalization, and contribute to reconsider EEs orchestration in the digital era.
This study examines how entrepreneurship education and training (EET) influences sociopreneurship in emerging economies. Drawing on dynamic imprinting theory, we argue that EET received at different stages of life leaves imprints of unequal durability, and that the expression of those imprints depends on supportive institutional conditions. Using Global Entrepreneurship Monitor Adult Population Survey and National Expert Survey data from 26 emerging economies from 2002 to 2022, we distinguish between basic-school and post-school EET and assess how commercial and professional infrastructure, country-level cultural and social norms shape their relationship with sociopreneurship. The findings show that basic-school EET is positively associated with sociopreneurship, suggesting that earlier educational exposure creates more durable prosocial and opportunity-oriented imprints. By contrast, post-school EET is weak or insignificant on average but becomes positively associated with sociopreneurship where institutional infrastructure and cultural norms are more supportive. These results extend dynamic imprinting theory by showing that educational imprints vary by timing and that institutions operate not merely as background conditions but as mechanisms that reactivate latent imprints. The study contributes to research on entrepreneurship education and social entrepreneurship and offers policy implications for early educational intervention and ecosystem development in emerging economies.
