This book will be an excellent primer for policy makers wishing to understand the nature and contradictory significance of the underground economy and needing to design suitably subtle policy responses to it. Roger Lee, Growth and Change The Hidden Enterprise Culture is a top pick for any economist or academician interested in this field, as well as for any underground entrepreneur who wants to make their enterprise lawful with the fewest possible legal complications. Midwest Book Review Strongly recommended for policy makers and students of business. Global Business Review Portraying how entrepreneurs often start out conducting some or all of their trade on an off-the-books basis and how many continue to do so once they become established, this book provides the first detailed account of the vast and ubiquitous hidden enterprise culture existing in the interstices of western economies. Until now, the role of the underground economy in enterprise creation, entrepreneurship and small business development has been largely ignored despite its widespread prevalence and importance. In contrast to much of the previous literature that views the underground economy as low-paid, exploitative sweatshop work that should be deterred, this book takes a fresh, more positive perspective that considers the underground economy as a hidden enterprise culture. Colin C. Williams prescribes the means by which western governments can best harness this hidden culture of enterprise. He outlines detailed policy initiatives that seek to assist business ventures in setting up on a formal footing, and aim to encourage underground enterprises and entrepreneurs to make the transition into the realm of legitimacy. This book provides a lucid guide as to how the hidden culture of enterprise can be brought into the open. As such, it will prove invaluable to a wide-ranging audience including scholars and students of business studies, entrepreneurship, management, economics and regional science.

There is little doubt that in recent years, enterprise has been considered an essential approach in the alleviation of deprivation existing in the developed world. The assumption is that area-based initiatives provide a means by which enterprise can include all members of society in mainstream social and economic activities. The rationale behind Enterprise, Deprivation and Social Exclusion is to critically challenge the notion that enterprise can address the complexity behind deprivation and social exclusion by demonstrating UK and North American examples. We see how enterprise has come to be regarded as a means by which poverty can be reduced and new opportunities can be opened up to support individuals. However, the authors here seek to give a greater appreciation to the structural roots of deprivation and pose questions about whether or not enterprise might actually exacerbate structures of social and economic exclusion. What if enterprise actually maintains differences between types of community and keeps individuals entrenched in certain ways of thinking? The contributions in this edited collection will offer a distinct opportunity in respect of both theoretical and empirical advancement. The authors hale from both sides of the Atlantic and form an inter-disciplinary group to provide complementary perspectives in this field.

Despite the growing evidence on the importance of the neighbourhood, entrepreneurship studies have largely neglected the role of neighbourhoods. This book addresses the nexus between entrepreneurship, neighbourhoods and communities, confirming not only the importance of ‘the local’ in entrepreneurship, but also filling huge gaps in the knowledge base regarding this tripartite relationship.

This book explores the lived experience of cultural entrepreneurship examining the challenges associated with cultural labour including the insecurities of managing precarious working conditions. Drawing on interviews conducted with cultural workers, Cultural Entrepreneurship focuses on how individuals articulate their experience of entrepreneurship in the cultural and creative industries. Noting the importance of place, the local cultural milieu is examined as a means of situating entrepreneurial practices through cultural and enterprise policies, local networks, and significant relationships. Within this framework, the cultural entrepreneurs’ stories reveal means of subverting or re-interpreting identities and the possibility for ‘rethinking cultural entrepreneurship.’ Aimed at researchers, academics and students investigating cultural entrepreneurship, cultural policy and cultural labour, Cultural Entrepreneurship will additionally be of value to creative industry consultants, cultural policymakers, and those setting up creative enterprises. Researchers from fields such as geography, investigating different aspects of the cultural industries in relation to cultural policy and place, will also find this book to be a useful contribution.

Although entrepreneurship in the informal economy occurs outside state regulatory systems, informal commercial activities account for an estimated 30% of economic activity around the world. Informal entrepreneurship goes unmonitored despite the fact that it significantly contributes to poverty reduction and economic development. As a result, the informal sector is open to unethical practices including corruption, worker exploitation, and natural environment abuse to name just a few. In the media, debates have formed around whether informal entrepreneurship should be assisted or legitimized. Hence, a deep understanding of the phenomenon is vitally important. This book is the first on the market to offer models and approaches to informal entrepreneurship as well as to its prospects for economic development. Offering an in-depth examination of informal entrepreneurship in many different countries, it reveals the motivations for engaging in entrepreneurship in the informal economy, characteristics of informal entrepreneurship, and informal entrepreneurs' response to ethical issues. This volume illustrates the relationship between formal and informal economies and the conditions for the benefits of informal entrepreneurship to outweigh its disadvantages. And finally, it gives recommendations about when and how the informal economy can be formalized, which sectors should be formalized, and which ones can remain informal. This book offers much-needed guidance for stakeholders involved in economic development programs and scholars and entrepreneurs interested in the field of informal entrepreneurship as it is developing around the globe.

Issues in Entrepreneurship and Small Business: 2011 Edition is a ScholarlyEditions™ eBook that delivers timely, authoritative, and comprehensive information about Entrepreneurship and Small Business. The editors have built Issues in Entrepreneurship and Small Business: 2011 Edition on the vast information databases of ScholarlyNews.™ You can expect the information about Entrepreneurship and Small Business in this eBook to be deeper than what you can access anywhere else, as well as consistently reliable, authoritative, informed, and relevant. The content of Issues in Entrepreneurship and Small Business: 2011 Edition has been produced by the world’s leading scientists, engineers, analysts, research institutions, and companies. All of the content is from peer-reviewed sources, and all of it is written, assembled, and edited by the editors at ScholarlyEditions™ and available exclusively from us. You now have a source you can cite with authority, confidence, and credibility. More information is available at http://www.ScholarlyEditions.com/.

The shadow economy has become the focus of policy makers around the world. This timely book explores the relationship between entrepreneurship and the shadow economy, by reviewing how to measure, explain and tackle this hidden enterprise culture. The editors bring together leading authorities in the field to examine existing methods to measure shadow economy, explore entrepreneurship and shadow economy practices in various contexts, and provide policy suggestions for decreasing the shadow economy. It concludes by encouraging further research in this ever-growing field. Students and scholars in the field of entrepreneurship and the shadow economy will find this book to be of use to their work. It will also be of use to those in disciplines, such as sociology, economics and global studies, as well as practitioners in the field of public policy. Contributors:Y. Abdih, J.E. Amoros, A. Chepurenko, J.P. Couyoumdjian, O. Cristi, E. Denisova-Schmidt, I.A Horodnic, L. Medina, M. Minniti, Y. Prytula, T.J. Putnins, A. Sauka, F. Schneider, M. Virtanen, C.C. Williams, J. Windebank