Inclusive Entrepreneurship through Home-based business? Event

A significant and growing proportion of businesses in the UK, the US and other advanced economies are operated from entrepreneurs’ homes. Most small business research has investigated home-based businesses within the context of advanced economies in relation to women entrepreneurship and their growth motivation and potentials. This presentation provides a new perspective on home-based business through the concept of inclusive entrepreneurship. Rather than on growth, innovation or gender per se, it is argued that the blurring of the boundaries between the business and the home might benefit most people who are spatially constrained and face discrimination in the labour market because they are immobile: the disabled and women with children.

A conceptual framework is developed in this study that links characteristics of entrepreneurs with the inclusive growth literature. Indicators for inclusive entrepreneurship are derived based on objective and subjective measures of Quality of Life (Stiglitz et al., 2009). Empirically, the study draws on data from the UK Labour Force Survey and the UK Household Longitudinal Study (‘Understanding Society’).

The presented work is part of the WORKANDHOME project Dr Reuschke is leading, funded by an ERC Starting Grant (www.workandhome.ac.uk). Darja is Associate Professor in the Department of Geography and Environment at the University of Southampton.