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1 – 10 of over 38000Claudio Bravo-Ortega, Carla Bustamante, Pablo Egana del Sol, Felipe Symmes and José Sexton
The purpose of this study is to investigate the role of sales, as a proxy for size, in moderating the impact of institutional incongruence between formal and informal institutions…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to investigate the role of sales, as a proxy for size, in moderating the impact of institutional incongruence between formal and informal institutions on the formalization of microenterprises in middle-income countries in Latin America.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper uses a probit regression model to examine business formalization as a binary outcome of formal and informal institutions. Data was collected through interviews and surveys across 52 municipalities in the Metropolitan Region of Santiago, Chile. The study used a stratified sampling approach and was conducted between November 2022 and January 2023.
Findings
The results offer three key insights into the formalization of microenterprises in middle-income countries. First, we show that formal institutions do not significantly influence formalization decisions among microentrepreneurs in middle-income countries, challenging the traditional belief that formal institutions alone significantly influence formalization in these contexts. Second, we show that informal institutions are significant predictors of informality, especially among smaller microenterprises. Third, we highlight that the smaller the business, the stronger the negative effect of informal institutions on formalization, and thus, the institutional incongruence between formal and informal institutions decreases for larger businesses.
Originality/value
This paper contributes to management literature by shedding light on the drivers of formalization in middle-income countries, a departure from most formalization studies wherein the focus is primarily on low-income economies. The findings suggest that policymakers in middle-income countries should focus on enabling microenterprise growth through sales, rather than targeting specific demographic groups or relying solely on formal institutional enforcement to promote formalization.
Propósito
El objetivo de este estudio es investigar el papel de las ventas, utilizadas como un indicador de tamaño, en la mediación del impacto de la incongruencia institucional entre instituciones formales e informales en la formalización de microempresas en países de ingresos medios en América Latina.
Método
Utilizamos un modelo de regresión Probit para examinar la formalización empresarial como un resultado binario de instituciones formales e informales. Los datos se recopilaron a través de 110 entrevistas y encuestas en 52 municipios de la Región Metropolitana de Santiago, Chile. El estudio empleó un enfoque de muestreo estratificado y se llevó a cabo entre noviembre de 2022 y enero de 2023.
Hallazgos
Nuestros resultados ofrecen tres ideas clave sobre la formalización de microempresas en países de ingresos medios. Primero, demostramos que las instituciones formales no influyen significativamente en las decisiones de formalización entre las microempresas en países de ingresos medios; esto desafía la creencia tradicional de que las instituciones formales por sí solas influyen significativamente en la formalización en estos contextos. Segundo, nuestro estudio muestra que las instituciones informales son predictores significativos de la informalidad, especialmente entre las microempresas más pequeñas. Tercero, nuestro estudio destaca que el efecto negativo de las instituciones informales sobre la formalización es más fuerte para negocios de menor tamaño; por lo tanto, la incongruencia institucional entre instituciones formales e informales disminuye para negocios de mayor tamaño.
Originalidad
Este artículo contribuye a la literatura iluminando sobre los impulsores de la formalización en países de ingresos medios, a diferencia de la mayoría de los estudios de formalización en la región latinoamericana que se centran principalmente en países de bajos ingresos. Nuestros hallazgos sugieren que los responsables de políticas en países de ingresos medios deberían centrarse en impulsar el crecimiento de las microempresas a través de las ventas, en lugar de enfocarse en grupos demográficos específicos o depender únicamente del cumplimiento institucional formal para promover la formalización.
Propósito
O objetivo deste estudo é investigar o papel das vendas, usadas como um indicador de tamanho, na mediação do impacto da incongruência institucional entre instituições formais e informais na formalização de microempresas em países de renda média na América Latina.
Método
Utilizamos um modelo de regressão Probit para examinar a formalização empresarial como um resultado binário de instituições formais e informais. Os dados foram coletados por meio de 110 entrevistas e pesquisas em 52 municípios da Região Metropolitana de Santiago, Chile. O estudo empregou uma abordagem de amostragem estratificada e foi realizado entre novembro de 2022 e janeiro de 2023.
Resultados
Nossos resultados oferecem três ideias-chave sobre a formalização de microempresas em países de renda média. Primeiro, demonstramos que as instituições formais não influenciam significativamente as decisões de formalização entre as microempresas em países de renda média; isso desafia a crença tradicional de que as instituições formais, por si só, influenciam significativamente a formalização nesses contextos. Segundo, nosso estudo mostra que as instituições informais são preditores significativos da informalidade, especialmente entre as microempresas menores. Terceiro, nosso estudo destaca que o efeito negativo das instituições informais sobre a formalização é mais forte para negócios de menor porte; portanto, a incongruência institucional entre instituições formais e informais diminui para negócios de maior porte.
Originalidade
Este artigo contribui para a literatura iluminando os impulsionadores da formalização em países de renda média, ao contrário da maioria dos estudos de formalização na região latino-americana, que se concentram principalmente em países de baixa renda. Nossos achados sugerem que os responsáveis pelas políticas em países de renda média deveriam focar em impulsionar o crescimento das microempresas por meio das vendas, em vez de se concentrar em grupos demográficos específicos ou depender exclusivamente do cumprimento institucional formal para promover a formalização.
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Keywords
- Informal economy
- Middle-income countries
- Latin America
- Formal and informal institutions
- Entrepreneurship
- Microenterprises
- Economía informal
- Países de ingresos medios
- América Latina
- Instituciones formales e informales
- Emprendimiento
- Microempresas
- Economia informal
- Países de renda media
- América Latina
- Instituições formais e informais
- Empreendedorismo
- Microempresas
Besnik Krasniqi, Nick Williams, Iraj Hashi, Fisnik Reçica, Ermal Lubishtani and Liridon Kryeziu
This paper aims to examine the influence of formal and informal institutional quality on country-level variations in foreign equity shares in transition economies (TEs).
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to examine the influence of formal and informal institutional quality on country-level variations in foreign equity shares in transition economies (TEs).
Design/methodology/approach
Drawing on institutional theory and transaction cost theory, this paper examines the influence of formal and informal institutional quality on country-level variations in foreign equity shares in TEs. The authors use a two-step empirical strategy, identifying clusters of explanatory variables and running generalized least squares random effect estimations to test for the influence of explanatory and control variables on foreign equity shares.
Findings
Foreign equity share is positively affected by informal institutions and negatively by formal institutions. However, when control for stage of transition we find that the the presence of informal institutions in more rapidly or advanced transforming economies negatively influences foreign equity shares. Complex infrastructure discourages foreign equity shareholdings, and foreign companies use informal practices to overcome unfavourable host country conditions. Government size has a negative effect, and gross domestic product per capita positively affects foreign equity shares.
Research limitations/implications
The study is the new groundwork for the re-enactment of a fruitful discussion on foreign equity. The study has practical implications for managers, too – managers of foreign-owned firms operating in weakly installed institutional environments should carefully analyse the entry strategies because of the high presence of informal institutions. Furthermore, managers could understand the various facilitation roles of informal institutions in any firm internationalisation effort to arrive at optimal ownership holdings for better internationalisation performance. Although the study is based on a sample of transition countries, the findings have implications for other emerging economies’ contexts sharing similar institutional settings.
Originality/value
This study provides a unique empirical investigation and evidence based on country-level indicators on the effect of formal and informal institutions on foreign equity shares holdings in TEs, reinforcing the importance of impacts of both the formal and informal dimensions on ownership decisions of foreign investors.
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Samuel Adomako, Albert Danso and Ernest Ampadu
Previous scholarly studies on institutions tend to create a sombre picture of institutions by ignoring to examine the antecedents of formal and informal institutions. The purpose…
Abstract
Purpose
Previous scholarly studies on institutions tend to create a sombre picture of institutions by ignoring to examine the antecedents of formal and informal institutions. The purpose of this paper is to overcome this limitation by proposing a conceptual framework of the antecedents of formal and informal institutions of entrepreneurial climate in a less developed market setting.
Design/methodology/approach
This study builds on a comprehensive survey of the literature on institutions by using a synthesis thematic methodology to identified key scholarly studies which have been published in previous theoretical and empirical studies and proposes a conceptual framework of the role of formal and informal institutions in defining entrepreneurial climate in a developing economy’s context.
Findings
The findings of the paper suggest that political factors and economic factors define formal institutions whilst socio-cultural factors define informal institutions. These factors rooted in political, economic and socio-cultural factors have a major influence on the rate and nature of entrepreneurial activity in a developing country setting.
Practical implications
This paper contributes to the literature on entrepreneurship and intuitional theory by focusing on the antecedents of formal and informal institutional factors that shape entrepreneurial climate in Ghana.
Originality/value
To the authors’ knowledge, this is the first review that explores the nature of entrepreneurial climate and proposes a conceptual framework of the role of formal and informal institutions in defining entrepreneurial climate in Ghana.
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The purpose of this paper is to empirically define the ways in which informal institutions influence entrepreneurial intentions. It tests the statement that informal institutions…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to empirically define the ways in which informal institutions influence entrepreneurial intentions. It tests the statement that informal institutions can have an impact on people’s decisions, directly and indirectly, by affecting their perceptions of the external world.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper develops a theoretical model of the probability of starting a business by a potential entrepreneur. The model takes into account a comparison of current wages and future profits. The empirical analysis is based on European social survey data at the individual level. Three-stage least squares regression helps to overcome the endogeneity problem since perceptions of government actions are individual specific.
Findings
Informal institutions can affect expectations about future activities in a person’s lifetime utility maximisation problem. The paper empirically concludes that these institutions are connected with a person’s satisfaction with government and can indirectly affect the probability to be self-employed.
Research limitations/implications
Research limitations are related to employing proxies for informal institutions, using only the “satisfaction with government” as a perceptions indicator, and cross-sectional data while defining the causal effect.
Practical implications
Policymakers should consider that institutional settings affect people in a different manner when developing their policies.
Originality/value
The paper makes a novel contribution by analysing the effect of informal institutions on the probability to start a business by using both theoretical arguments and empirical tests. Building upon insights from a broader informal institutions’ effect on entrepreneurial intentions, this paper is the first to study a linkage between informal institutions and their indirect effect on people’s profit expectations.
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This paper aims to investigate the co-evolve relationship between informal relational governance (i.e. family involvement and personal authority) and family formal governance…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to investigate the co-evolve relationship between informal relational governance (i.e. family involvement and personal authority) and family formal governance system in the process of growth and transformation. This co-evolve relationship is especially affected by the external institutional environment and market competition power. Thus, in the comprehensive process of deepening the reform and changing market, the modern transformation of family business means that rediscovery of unique superiority of family business and the core of this transformation is the governance of status privileges and private interests.
Design/methodology/approach
To test the hypotheses, this paper uses the 9th Chinese Private Enterprise Survey in 2010. A total of 4,900 questionnaires are issued, 4,614 are recovered and the total recovery rate is 94.16%. After clean the data, the study obtained 1,239 samples. To overcome the possible existence of heteroscedasticity, this study uses the feasible generalized least squares (FGLS) to estimate the model. Besides, as for dummy dependent variables, this study uses logistics regression.
Findings
This paper makes an empirical test for the evolution of family governance driven by institutional change and organizational growth willingness in the process of growth and transformation, including a co-evolve relationship between family involvement and governance institution. Meanwhile, the empirical analysis comes to the conclusion that the institutional constraint to relational governance improves firm performance, which further promotes the modern transformation of family business governance.
Practical implications
It is the key to transformation to the modern corporate organization that family business could beyond the intervention of the traditional nepotism, patriarchal authority and family will. The fundamental of this process is to take advantage of formal institutions to manage family power.
Originality/value
This paper discusses the modern transformation of the formal organization from the perspective of modern ideal dominant type proposed by Max Weber. Modern organization is a hybrid system of the non-personified and personified institution. The primary reason why modern organization suffered erosion and destruction is that informal institution (status and relationship network) were endowed with legal privileges and private interests in modern organization including family business. The governance of privileges and private interests has become the core issue that whether the family business could play an instrumental value and realize modern transformation successfully.
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The purpose of this paper is to examine the potential pathway of influence of formal and informal institutions and economic development on the business productive behaviour at the…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine the potential pathway of influence of formal and informal institutions and economic development on the business productive behaviour at the national level.
Design/methodology/approach
In the paper SEM models and regression analysis are used to define the causal relationships. Using data from cultural dimensions of Hofstede, Inglehart and Tabellini, proxies for formal institutions and economic development this research empirically examines the way of influence of these factors on entrepreneurship performance in the national economy.
Findings
This paper demonstrates that, stimulating by the economic growth, formal and informal institutions could affect business productive behaviour at the macro level in both direct and indirect ways through each other. Formal and informal institutions were found to act as substitutes. The author argues that the decision to act productively is not just a result of the formal institutional framework – “bad” outcomes of business development may also be a consequence of the activity of certain informal institutions as well as caused by poor levels of national economic development.
Practical implications
Based on the findings of this research it is possible to improve the methods of formation of stimulation policy for driving business behaviour in a productive way by taking into account existing formal and informal institutions and the level of development of the national economy.
Originality/value
This paper by using SEM techniques examines the causal relationships between the quality of formal and informal institutions and productivity of entrepreneurs at the national level.
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Eunice Santos, Cristina I. Fernandes and João J. Ferreira
There has been a diverse range of research on the factors enabling informal entrepreneurship as well as the means to avoid or to eradicate its incidence. However, the authors may…
Abstract
Purpose
There has been a diverse range of research on the factors enabling informal entrepreneurship as well as the means to avoid or to eradicate its incidence. However, the authors may also identify how a significant proportion of research on this field of study centres around developing economies and correspondingly justifying the application of such analysis to countries with different levels of economic development as is the case of Europe. The purpose of this paper is to depict the ways in which economic and political institutions influence informal entrepreneurship.
Design/methodology/approach
To this end, the authors apply aggregate data at the national level collected from different sources, in particular the World Bank, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor and Freedom House, for the years between 2006 and 2015 and for 23 European countries amounting to a total of 229 observations (unbalanced panel).
Findings
Through recourse to econometric estimations, based upon multiple regression model methodologies for panel data, the authors may report that the greater the quality of economic and political institutions, the lower the level of informal entrepreneurship.
Originality/value
The authors thus seek to contribute towards a better understanding of the influence of institutions and the policies that may feasibly influence informal entrepreneurship.
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Much of existing research has attempted to explain Asian Growth Paradox through formal institution – role of the government or rule of law. Therefore, this paper attempts to…
Abstract
Purpose
Much of existing research has attempted to explain Asian Growth Paradox through formal institution – role of the government or rule of law. Therefore, this paper attempts to empirically explain the paradox with informal institution including interaction between informal and formal institutions. Two interrelated research questions summarize this research. First, how can we capture the relationship between informal and formal institutions? Then, how is that relationship different for Asian Paradox states vs non-paradox states?
Design/methodology/approach
To capture the relationship between informal and formal institutions, we use Helmke and Levitsky (2004)'s framework to categorize the interaction as complementing, competing, substituting and accommodating. We perform cross-sectional regression analysis for more than 130 countries.
Findings
We find that the developed, developing and the Asian Paradox states display different patterns of interaction between informal and formal institutions. However, we also find that the interaction effect has a limited value explaining growth for most of these countries, suggesting that Helmke and Levitsky (2004)'s framework has limitations. Finally, we challenge the notion of Asian Paradox states, as countries outside of Asia also qualify as the Paradox states.
Originality/value
Not much empirical effort has examined how different relationships between informal and formal institutions can explain growth internationally across countries. We show that different institutional patterns explain growth across the Paradox states and non-Paradox states.
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Amine Abi Aad and James G. Combs
We raise and address an unexamined research question: Why do managers place some business activities in the formal economy and others in the informal? This firm-level managerial…
Abstract
Purpose
We raise and address an unexamined research question: Why do managers place some business activities in the formal economy and others in the informal? This firm-level managerial choice is most visible in emerging economies and is important due to its performance implications.
Design/methodology/approach
We theorize that managers use social ties with formal institutions (e.g. parliament, central bank) to protect against (1) being singled out for enforcement and (2) opportunistic business partners, and that these protections allow managers to conduct more activities in the informal economy. Based on regulatory focus theory, we also submit that managers with a promotion (prevention) focus mindset are more (less) prone to use their social ties with formal institutions to emphasize the informal economy. Hypotheses are tested using survey data from 362 Lebanese top managers.
Findings
Managers' social ties with formal institutions relate positively to their propensity to use the informal economy, and managers with a promotion mindset are more willing and those with a prevention mindset are less willing to leverage their social ties with formal institutions to conduct activities in the informal economy.
Originality/value
Our study raises an important new research question at the intersection of strategic and international management and offers an initial answer. Working within the informal economy requires informal social ties among informal actors, but for formally registered firms, entry into the informal economy requires informal ties with formal actors.
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The purpose of the study is to develop an understanding of the interplay between multinational enterprises (MNEs) and informal institutions on a firm–industry level. “Interplay”…
Abstract
The purpose of the study is to develop an understanding of the interplay between multinational enterprises (MNEs) and informal institutions on a firm–industry level. “Interplay” here means how responses to institutions develop in a particular context and how this development is interrelated with stakeholders’ reactions and activities. To study this interplay between MNEs and informal institutions, the authors draw on literature on institutional complexity, as well as on a co-evolutionary perspective. Two case vignettes are presented on MNEs’ post-entry strategies and behaviors in their new host markets, with a view to understanding how and under what conditions informal institutions in the host market may compel MNEs to alter their initial strategies and behaviors in the market and, on the other hand, how and under what conditions MNEs’ strategies and behaviors may act as catalysts of change in these informal institutions.
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