From Coca Leaf to Cocoa Bean Growers

Entrepreneurial associative initiatives (EAI) have been suggested to be a useful way for vulnerable, especially rural, communities to improve their life conditions. Although these organisations initially do get involved in product, process, organisational and marketing innovations, it is important for them to find ways of innovating permanently in order to stay ahead in such a competitive market. This chapter presents a theoretical background on the topics of relevance such as vulnerable communities, entrepreneurship and innovation which it is followed by the case of Distrito Chocolate, an EAI with a background marked by the armed conflict in Colombia, which has taken a step forward on all of their innovations activities, and furthermore has also achieved social innovation. Following the case, the authors presents some recommendations, future research avenues and conclusions, with the aim to be of assistance to practitioners, academic and policy makers interested in the EAI phenomenon

Creating Market Inclusion

Understanding how social entrepreneurship as a tool of financial development has been in the center of the entrepreneurship and management disciplines for the last couple of decades. These studies have furthered our understanding of how social entrepreneurship helps the most vulnerable populations around the world. However, much of the literature on this subject has been devoted to analyze how social entrepreneurship aids such populations in developing locations. While this chapter does not try to diminish the admirable work carried by social entrepreneurs in developing countries, it points out that an analysis of this discipline in a developed location is overdue. To initiate a conversation, this chapter analyzes how institutional voids can arise in a developed location and the role that social entrepreneurship has in closing such gaps and to include vulnerable populations in the formal banking industry in the United States.

Informal Investment for Entrepreneurs in Latin America and the Caribbean

The authors provide a broad view of the field of informal investment in the region, emphasizing the importance of separating the contribution of this sector from that provided by other channels of financing of entrepreneurship such as angel investment and venture capital. After framing the issue and reviewing the most relevant academic literature, the authors discuss the existing relationship between the current state of informal investment in the area and the size of the informal sector in economies that constitute the sector. They also show the magnitude of informal investment and its impact on the creation of new business activities, identifying the most salient features of the process, as well as their strong and weak points, and a deep reflection on the elements that would have to work to make progress in the modernization of this sector.

Evolution of Social and Creative Enterprise Incubation Methodology

The purpose of this chapter is to critically describe the historic methodological process of the Gênesis Institute of PUC-Rio, University Incubator, during its 20 years of operation in Rio de Janeiro together with entrepreneurs of necessity and opportunity. PUC-Rio will qualify as an Entrepreneurial University and the Gênesis Institute as a multisector incubator in the 3rd phase of maturity. Additionally, another aim of this chapter is on supporting the generation of innovative entrepreneurs and ventures in the social and cultural sectors from a historical illustrated vision of cases of incubated ventures.

Understanding Social Business and Wellbeing at the BoP

The interest in poverty reduction has received scholarly attention from various academics studying developmental economics, the informal economy and the base of the pyramid (BoP). This chapter intends to engage with the BoP topic by reviewing research areas that are intertwined: the informal economy, the BoP and perhaps most importantly social business and wellbeing. The chapter introduces Algramo, a BoP venture from Chile that aims to reduce food poverty in Latin America. The focus of this chapter is on Algramo's activities in Colombia as a single case study to better understand the impact of three wellbeing aspects on the stakeholders involved. Although Algramo, a work in progress, is primarily focused on food poverty reduction; this chapter reveals that there are potentially much wider implications that are consistent with BoP literature. Wellbeing is important and merits further study when investigating BoP ventures. The chapter concludes with future research directions for BoP scholars and for those who are interested in the wider impacts of engaging with the BoP segment.

Developing Innovation Using Entrepreneurial Strategies

This chapter analyzes the entrepreneurial strategies that Colombian coffee growers develop in order to deal with adverse social, economic, and environmental conditions. These entrepreneurs are part of a long and rich heritage dating as far back as the end of the 19th century, when coffee became an important economic resource in Colombia. Constant variations, including coffee price volatility, instability of exchange rates, or environmental factors, such as climatic change and crop disease, are common conditions for coffee farmers. In order to survive during turbulent environments, coffee growers have adopted strategies such as the introduction of new services and final products; improvements in the production chain; horizontal and vertical cooperation; creativity and flexibility in order to be resilient to the changing market conditions. More than 560,000 vulnerable families in Colombia depend on coffee production as a main source of income, so studies to help strengthen their business are highly relevant.

Becoming an African Hair Salon Entrepreneur in the United States of America

African beauty salons are important institutions in African and African American communities and can be found in nearly every city and community where African immigrants live. This study utilizes case study to explore the pathways to African women's entrepreneurship and business sustainability in hair braiding within the care industry. While social exchange theory and standpoint theory help to illuminate the “non-choice” of salon entrepreneurship for educated African immigrant women, Lave and Wenger's (1991) notion of communities of practice further discloses how the salon space becomes dedicated to more than service delivery. In general, the study shows the efforts of one entrepreneur to fit the unique exigencies of hair braiding to local (western) business requirements. The study identifies how more accommodation of those exigencies would less inhibit this form of African women's entrepreneurship in general and thus benefit local communities at large through more sustainable service delivery, increased revenue flow, and infrastructural support for immigrants in general.

Entrepreneurial IHEs

Drawing on extant theories of entrepreneurship at the individual, organizational, environmental level, as well as, processes, the chapter presents a framework to stimulate Innovation & Entrepreneurship (I&E) through Institutions of Higher Education (IHEs). The framework positions universities within an institutional environment that provides the cues for configuration of their resource base. Institutions of Higher Education must consider the multiple dimensions of entrepreneurship when organizing their resource base since configurations that support an entrepreneurial focus may inhibit another. Innovation and entrepreneurship outcomes will lead to regional development, and these two will create a new set of institutional conditions in the region. The framework in this chapter serves as blueprint, for researchers and practitioners, to examine the multiple factors, and the synergies among these, to spur regional development through universities and I&E.

Popular Businesses Model Located Inside a Retail Market in Chiclayo, Peru

Having studied characteristics of micro-businesses located inside a public market a popular business model was discovered. Proximity between owners and customers is its strategic essence. Different types of popular businesses installed inside Moshoqueque market were studied. Since founding in 1974 it has satisfied its distribution traditional role of low-priced mass consumer products. Application of qualitative methodologies of scientific research in grounded theory was resorted to. In-depth interviews to owners were developed, multiple observations -participant and non-participant- on social practices management were made and, a review of this market history rooted in the population in zone was done to know its development. Essential findings are focused on construction of various types of external proximity: functional, relational, spatial, and identity. Other factors were discovered: agents' regulatory actions and their impact on infrastructure, traders' and customers' origins, role played by population in zone and the unceasing informality growth.

Entrepreneurial Initiatives With Re-Migrants

This chapter describes the development of a program designed for Colombians that, after living several years abroad, decided to return. These re-migrants received support of national government and the Center for Entrepreneurship Development at the Universidad Icesi (CDEE-Icesi) to identify new entrepreneurial ideas, even to start operations and generate income to meet their personal needs in the process of reintegration to the country. The entrepreneurial educational model based on competences designed by CDEE-Icesi, was the focus of the whole training process, and the support phases were done by Centro Alaya based on SBDC´s methodology. The high proportion of participants that were able to start their own enterprise and the entrepreneurial success cases in the first months of operation, allows the CDEE-Icesi to show to the Colombian Foreign Ministry (the funding body for this project) the validity of the integrated approach model, for the process of reintegration of Colombians who are returning to the country.