Business, Entrepreneurship and Innovation Toward Poverty Reduction

Ways in which poverty can be reduced in both countries and regions through business, entrepreneurship and government has been a hot issue for researchers and policymakers in recent years. Governments can play an important role in helping the poor people by non-profit organizations and others that help to seed business among the poor. Businesses increasingly also see the large number of people in severe poverty not only as an issue for social concern, but also as a potentially large untapped market of consumers for goods and services. Some scholars have called for poverty reduction through entrepreneurship owing to the fact that it can be an efficient path to also change the poor's attitudes and behaviours from a passive mode, to a more active mode towards poverty reduction economically and socially. In addition, the sharing economy brings opportunities where everyone is a micro-entrepreneur. There is a recognition that these types of entrepreneurship above could offer the greatest single potential means to move individuals out of poverty in the nations and regions in the next 5-10 years.

This book provides new and valuable analyses of poverty and business, entrepreneurship and innovation in current nations and regions including developing and developed countries. As business, entrepreneurship and innovation can help to generate greater business activity in settings of severe poverty, they will help to solve poverty, as individuals in severe poverty are able to both generate greater incomes and accumulate greater assets as they participate with large firms in those activities.

The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of the Entrepreneurship & Regional Development.

Steven Si is Distinguished Professor (entrepreneurship/innovation) at Zhejiang University and research professor at Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania. Professor Si has published about 100 peer-reviewed articles in journals such as Journal of Business Venturing, Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal, Journal of Applied Psychology, Academy of Management Perspectives and others. He has served as guest editor for six Special Issues for the prestigious journals such as Technovation, Journal of Business Venturing, Journal of Engineering and Technology Management, Entrepreneurship and Regional Development, Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal, International Journal of Conflict Management, and Asia Pacific Journal of Management. Professor Si currently serves as an associate editor for the journal Technovation and the editorial board of Journal of Management Studies and other prestigious journals.

David Ahlstrom is Professor at The Chinese University of Hong Kong. Professor Ahlstrom has published over 150 peer-reviewed articles in journals such as the Strategic Management Journal, Academy of Management Review, Journal of International Business Studies, Journal of Management Studies, Organization Science, Journal of Business Venturing, and Academy of Management Perspectives. He was recognized as a ‘Highly Cited Researcher’ 2017-2019.

Jiang Wei (PhD) is Changjiang Chair Professor of innovation and strategy at Zhejiang University, China. He is now serving as the Dean of School of Management at Zhejiang University. Professor Wei has published 17 academic monographs and over 400 papers in Chinese and/or international academic journals such as Journal of International Business Studies, Management and Organizational Review, Technovation, R&D Management, Asia Pacific Journal of Management and others.

John Cullen (PhD, Columbia University) is Professor Emeritus of entrepreneurship, organization theory and international business/management at Washington State University. Formerly, Professor Cullen was the Huber Chair of Entrepreneurial Studies and Associate Dean for Graduate Programs. He has published over 150 peer-reviewed articles in journals such as the Academy of Management Journal, Administration Science Quarterly, Academy of Management Review, Journal of International Business Studies and many other prestigious management/business journals. He is a past president of the Western Academy of Management.