Yulia Rodionova

Methodological issues in studying hidden populations operating in informal economy

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to discuss the issues in studying hidden populations, with particular focus on methodology used to investigate ethnic minority entrepreneurs who illegally run their businesses in the UK. In this paper, on reflection, the authors look at what issues should be considered before engaging with such communities, as we identify current approaches and evaluate their merits.Design/methodology/approach – Certain methodological problems are faced by researchers working with hidden populations, and this paper explores these using a sample of Ukrainian illegal self‐employed construction workers operating in London. Semi‐structured interviews with 20 Ukrainians showcase the issues raised and help illustrate the limited applicability of some commonly used research methods to ethnic minority entrepreneurship studies. The authors used an intermediary to help gain access to these illegal migrants in order to satisfy the sensitive issues of this vulnerable group of respondents.Finding...

Ownership Structure, Cash Constraints and Investment Behaviour in Russian Family Firms

In this chapter, using a large representative panel dataset of 8,637 large firms in the European part of Russia and their balance sheet information over the period 2000–2004, we investigate the extent to which Russian firms and in particular a smaller sample of family firms are liquidity constrained in their investment behaviour and how ownership structure changes the relationship between internal funds and the investment decisions of these firms. Family firms differ from nonfamily firms due to the unique influence of family members in ownership, strategic control and succession and play a critical role in most economies throughout the world. We estimate a structural financial accelerator model of investment and first test the hypothesis that Russian firms overall and family firms in particular are cash constrained by conducting random-effects estimation. Our results confirm that firms are liquidity constrained when the ownership structure is not included in the econometric specifications. With regards to the ownership structure and the degree of ownership concentration, we find that companies owned by private individuals and families are less cash constrained, which is in agreement with previous literature. We also find that state-owned companies are less cash constrained, independently of whether their ownership structure is concentrated. No significant impact is found for banks and institutions.

False self-employment: The case of Ukrainian migrants in London’s construction sector

This article, presenting qualitative accounts of Ukrainian fake business owners, highlights how migrants engage in bogus self-employment in the UK. Their experiences problematise notions of legality and binary depictions of migrant workers as “victims or villains”, demonstrating that migrants see their illegal status as a transient stage before gaining legal status.

Does an Entrepreneur’s Gender Matter for Credibility and Financing of SMEs?

The importance of entrepreneur credibility, that is, a sense of belief or trust in the individual’s ability to fulfil the entrepreneurial role and create and sustain a viable venture, as perceived by key stakeholders, is attracting increasing attention within contemporary entrepreneurship literature (Tornikoski and Newbert, 2007; Wry et al., 2011). Current literature emphasises the masculine discourse, which informs the idea of the contemporary entrepreneur (Ahl, 2006). As such, women business owners/managers may potentially be disadvantaged by their gender, which devalues the entrepreneurial integrity from the perspective of key stakeholders. Women lack business credibility in the eyes of employees, customers, suppliers and financial institutions (Baines et al., 2003; Belle and La Valle, 2003; Marlow et al., 2008). It has been suggested that it is more difficult for women to raise start-up and growth finance (Coleman, 2000; SBA report, 2013) as well as establish their credibility (Marlow et al., 2008; Freel et al., 2012) when dealing with banks in particular.