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This paper aims to examine the concepts of gendered, entrepreneurial identity and fetishism through an analysis of images of Barbie entrepreneur. It draws on the literature of entrepreneurial identity and fetishism to examine how such identity is socially constructed from childhood and how exposure to such dolls can shape and influence perceptions of entrepreneurial identity.

Using semiotic analysis the authors conduct a visual analysis of the Barbie to make observations and inferences on gendered entrepreneurial identity and fetishism from the dolls and artifacts.

The gendered images of Barbie dolls were influenced by societal perceptions of what an entrepreneur should look like, reflecting the fetishisation of entrepreneurship, especially for women. Mirroring and exaggerating gendered perceptions, the dolls express hyper-femininity reflected in both the physical embodiment of the doll and their adornments/accessories. This includes handbags, high-heeled shoes, short skirts, haute-couture and designer clothes. Such items and the dolls themselves become fetishised objects, making context and culture of vital importance.

There are positive and negative implications in relation to how the authors might, as a society, present unrealistic gendered images and role models of entrepreneurship to children. The obvious limitation is that the methodology limits what can be said or understood, albeit the imagery mirrors socially constructed reality for the context examined.

This is original research in that no previous published studies have tackled gendered entrepreneurial identity in relation to fetishism. The value of the work lies in discussing the concepts and embeds them in the expanding conversation surrounding gendered entrepreneurial identities.

Although it has been recognised that many entrepreneurs operate in the informal economy, little is so far known about their reasons for doing so. The purpose of this paper is to begin to unravel entrepreneurs’ rationales for trading in the informal economy in order to consider what policy measures need to be adopted to facilitate their formalisation.

To do this, the results of an empirical survey are reported conducted in Ukraine during 2006/2007 with 331 individuals who had started-up or owned/managed an enterprise.

Revealing that the rationales for entrepreneurs operating in the informal economy markedly differ according to whether they are wholly or partially informal entrepreneurs operating temporarily or permanently in the informal economy, the result is a call for a move beyond a “one-size-fits-all” policy approach and towards a variegated public policy approach whereby policy measures are tailored to tackling the different types of informal entrepreneurship, each of which operate informally for varying reasons.

No evidence yet exists of whether the rationales for engaging in each type of informal entrepreneurship, and the consequent policy measures that need to be used to formalise each type, are more widely valid. Further research to evaluate this is required.

This is the first paper to start to move beyond a “one size fits all” policy approach when considering how to facilitate the formalisation of entrepreneurs in the informal economy.

Although there is emerging an understanding that many entrepreneurs conduct some or all of their transactions off‐the‐books, there has so far been little attempt to consider what can and should be done about entrepreneurship in the informal economy. The purpose of this paper is to bridge this gap.

Following a review of what is known about the prevalence and nature of informal entrepreneurship, this paper evaluates what can and should be done about informal entrepreneurs by analyzing the various policy options and their implications.

Evaluating the possible policy approaches of doing nothing, eradication, de‐regulation and facilitating formalisation, the finding is that doing nothing leaves intact the existing negative impacts on formal and informal businesses, customers and governments, whilst eradicating informal entrepreneurship results in governments stamping out precisely the entrepreneurship and enterprise culture that they wish to nurture, and de‐regulation results in a levelling down rather than up of working conditions. Only facilitating the formalisation of informal entrepreneurship is found to be a viable policy approach. How this might be achieved is then considered.

More research is required on the hurdles informal entrepreneurs witness when seeking to legitimize their business ventures in different populations before it can be known whether specific policy measures to facilitate formalisation are appropriate.

This paper evaluates various public policy options for tackling informal entrepreneurship and their impacts.

This is one of the first evaluations of the policy options available for tackling informal entrepreneurship.

The purpose of this paper is to understand the psychological contract from the employers' perspective, by examining violations where the employer rather than employee is the victim, an issue that has so far seldom been addressed in extant psychological contract research.

Small business owners are studied using qualitative interviews, incorporating critical incidents technique. Interview transcriptions have been analysed using template analysis.

The analysis reveals the significant disruption and damage caused by these incidents, with employers involving other employees in their response as they set about the essential repair work required. Employers actively mobilised shared understandings at the normative level of the group, reinforcing and sometimes renegotiating the employee obligations, as they seek to reaffirm their authority in the eyes of all of their employees. This response reflects the collective psychological contracts the employer holds with each of their employees and their concerns to limit the fall‐out/damage when one employee commits a violation.

The focus on small firms limits the generality of the findings with further research needed both in smaller and larger organisations to explore how organisational size impacts upon the processes identified, and the effect such incidents have when the organisation is represented by agents such as supervisors or managers. This calls for more in‐depth qualitative research in order to explore the highly nuanced experiences of employers and their representatives. The implications of the findings suggest the value of more explicit communication of employee obligations to prevent future psychological contract violation, and the role other employees may usefully play in this process.

This paper contributes to the much‐neglected study of employers' experiences of psychological contract violations committed by their employees.

To provide a practical example of how a research diary can be used to aid reflexivity in the research process. Whilst there have been increasing calls for reflexivity in management research, little has been written about how to “do” reflexivity in practice.

Qualitative data from the first author's research diary which relate to three distinctive experiences are used as analytical examples.

The research diary was a valuable tool, prompting insights which informed a variety of methodological and theoretical decisions in relation to the research.

Suggests that all researchers should systematically use a research diary, regardless of epistemological position. However, what is needed first and foremost is a commitment to the pursuit of reflexivity and awareness on ones' own epistemological assumptions.

The paper gives a practical example of how to practice reflexivity, something which is lacking in the current literature. It is intended to be of use to those management researchers interested in pursuing reflexive research.

This paper reports on empirical work recently conducted about the use and effectiveness of HRM practices in small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs). A telephone survey was conducted with 100 senior managers of SMEs to ascertain their use of a range of human resource practices and the extent to which they had found those practices successful in aiding the achievement of company objectives. Additionally in‐depth interviews were conducted with senior managers from a further 22 SMEs. Findings suggest that there is considerable diversity amongst SMEs in relation to their use of HR practices. A model is provided that identifies the key criteria that underlie the adoption of HRM practices, and the implications of the model are discussed.

The purpose of this paper is to explore how the business and research context influences how female entrepreneurs construct their identities.

Focussing specifically on the care work sector, the analysis of interview transcripts explores how participants struggle to establish a positive identity through reconciling the contradictory subject positions produced at the intersection of entrepreneurialism and caring.

The accounts reveal a silencing of the participants entrepreneurial identity and an embracing of their female identity, reflected in the mobilisation of a number of highly gendered “selves”. This is explained in terms of the participants' desire for legitimacy and integrity, principally in the eyes of their employees, something which is itself prompted by the precariousness of their position as female business owners in this sector.

The identity work is theorised at a structural level, reinforcing the need for future accounts of identity work to consider how this is always embedded in broader material conditions.

Presents an alternative way of enacting entrepreneurship and thus broadens normative notions of what it is to be an entrepreneur.

The paper complements existing post‐structuralist accounts of entrepreneurship and also illustrates the role of both broader structural and local contextual factors which both constrain and enable the identity work enacted.

The aim of this paper is to evaluate critically the extensively used social versus commercial entrepreneurship dualism that depicts these as entirely discrete realms possessing distinct and separate logics.

To challenge this dichotomous representation of entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship, empirical data gathered during 865 face‐to‐face interviews in urban and rural deprived and affluent English localities are reported.

Uncovering entrepreneurs’ rationales the finding is that entrepreneurs do not pursue either purely commercial or social goals. Rather, most voice both commercial and social logics when explaining their entrepreneurial endeavour, displaying that there is not a dichotomy but rather a continuum from purely commercial to purely social entrepreneurship. Neither do entrepreneurs’ logics remain static over time. What begins as a commercial entrepreneurial venture may become more socially oriented over time or vice versa. Logics underpinning entrepreneurship also vary socio‐spatially. Those living in deprived populations and rural populations are more socially‐oriented, whilst relatively affluent and urban populations are comparatively more commercially‐driven.

This is only a small sample and the data are not up to date. A more extensive contemporary survey will be required to more fully unravel how commercial and social entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship are not wholly separate and distinct.

The findings raise questions about whether it is appropriate to any longer differentiate between social and commercial entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship, such as in economic policy.

This paper displays the need to transcend the long‐standing commercial versus social entrepreneurship dualism and begins to document how logics of entrepreneurship vary temporally and spatially.

The purpose of this paper is to explain the cash‐in‐hand consumer culture in the property and construction sector. The conventional assumption has been that consumers using cash‐in‐hand transactions are rational economic actors doing so simply to save money. Here, this is evaluated critically.

To do this, evidence from a 2007 Eurobarometer survey involving 26,659 face‐to‐face interviews in 27 European Union member states is reported.

The finding is that saving money is the sole motive of consumers in just 38 per cent of cash‐in‐hand transactions in the European property and construction sector, one of several rationales in 38 per cent of exchanges and not cited as a rationale in the remaining 24 per cent of cases. Besides, saving money, consumers engage in cash‐in‐hand transactions to circumvent the shortcomings of formal sector provision in terms of its availability, speed and quality, as well as for social and redistributive rationales.

This paper reveals the need for in‐depth qualitative research to unravel consumers' complex and heterogeneous rationales for using this sphere.

The implication is that changing the cost/benefit ratio confronting consumers when choosing to use the cash‐in‐hand economy is unlikely to be successful since cost is, in most cases, not their only rationale. Instead, attention needs to be given to improving the availability, speed, reliability and quality of formal sector provision and dealing with cash‐in‐hand work conducted for social and redistributive purposes.

This paper refutes the assumption that goods and services are acquired from the cash‐in‐hand economy solely in order to save money.

A dominant belief is that the continuing encroachment of the market economy into everyday life is inevitable, unstoppable and irreversible. Over the past decade, however, a small stream of thought has started to question this commercialization thesis. This paper seeks to contribute to this emergent body of thought by developing a “whole economy” approach for capturing the multifarious economic practices in community economies and then applying this to an English locality.

A survey conducted of the economic practices used by 120 households in a North Nottinghamshire locality in the UK is reported here, comprising face‐to‐face interviews in an affluent, middle‐ranking and deprived neighborhood.

This reveals the limited commercialization of everyday life and the persistence of a multitude of economic practices in all neighborhood‐types. Participation rates in all economic practices (except one‐to‐one unpaid work and “off‐the‐radar” unpaid work) are higher in relatively affluent populations. Uneven development is marked by affluent populations that are “work busy”, engaging in a diverse spectrum of economic practices conducted more commonly out of choice, and disadvantaged populations that are more “work deprived”, conducting a narrower array of activities usually out of necessity.

This snapshot survey only displays that commercialization is not hegemonic. It does not display whether there is a shift towards commercialization.

Recognition of the limited encroachment of the market opens up the future to alternative possibilities beyond an inevitable commercialization of everyday life, intimating that the future will be characterized by the continuing persistence of multifarious economic practices rather than market hegemony.

The paper provides evidence from a western nation of the limited commercialization of daily life.