Informality and Entrepreneurship in Developing Economy: Case for Entrepreneurial Financing

Abstract

Over a decade ago, scholars in different domains of knowledge such as strategic management, economics, accounting, and finance have largely contributed to the theoretical and empirical studies of entrepreneurial financing. However, bridging of the domains or the theories that underly the domains, and expanding the frontier of the phenomenon in the context of informal entrepreneurship, are missing in the literature. This paper attempts to conceptualise and problematise various issues that confront informal sector entrepreneurship in accessing adequate financing for start-up opportunity, innovative products, services and technology in the informal markets, and explore how the ambiguity of the diverse domains of knowledge of entrepreneurial financing could be resolved by unifying and integrating the domains within a unique framework. Equally, this paper also aims to provide theoretical contributions to the extant literature of entrepreneurial financing by suggesting how management accounting research can bridge the gaps of informality problems that confront informal entrepreneurial financing. There is no doubt that informal businesses are saddled with legitimacy concerns such as non-conformity with legality and institutionalised policies. Similarly, the sector is also confronted with the issues of information asymmetry, moral hazard conflict, informal financial and ownership structure. Nonetheless, the informal entrepreneurship sector unarguably has a relevance to the opportunity discovery and innovativeness dimensions of entrepreneurial orientation, with the consequence of positive contributions to the economy in terms of large-scale employment growth. Hence, the scholars in the accounting discipline can leverage on the emerging different financial technology and fund providers to expand the literature on how the untold hardships and complexity that surround the funding of informal entrepreneurial start-ups and innovation can be mitigated. Management accounting discipline, being an applied field of strategic management can play vital roles in mitigating the aforesaid problems of informal entrepreneurship funding, if it could focus on expanding the literature or methodology on goal congruence, information management and controls, financial contracting model, incentive modelling for regulatory policy and search and match model that focuses on informal entrepreneur, investors and financial intermediaries.