Entrepreneurship and Innovation in Practice - Illegal Entrepreneurship

Entrepreneurship and Innovation in Practice

Illegal Entrepreneurship

"Critically analyse the challenges, obstacles and barriers of 21st century enterprise. Using examples from public, private and not for profit discuss ways in which these can be overcome"

What is Illegal entrepreneurship?

Societies a whole regularly have divided opinions what is deemed as ‘socially acceptable’ or what is the social ‘norm’.

When a large number of people have different views on what is seen as ‘socially acceptable’, these views can be eventually form the foundations of new laws and regulations. An example of this is in the form of petitions and protests that members of the public undertake to try to get governments to change their laws. However, this new set of rules and regulations may be different to another large group of individuals or businesses and because of these variances; a gap often emerges with opinions on what is legal and what is seen as legitimate. According to the journal article ‘You say illegal, I say legitimate: Entrepreneurship in the informal economy’ Webb et al states that ‘this type of gap is important in that when a large group defines social acceptability more broadly than is specified by established laws and regulations, members of that group may consider what is deemed illegal to be legitimate’. [1]

This in turn means that enterprise is essentially a deviance from ‘normal' or expected views and these differences create opportunities to explore and exploit the contrasting views. These deviances are usually conceived as socially unacceptable to some degree and it is debatable that the more unacceptable the deviance is, the more likely that it will be discarded by mainstream views. This in turn creates opportunity for people outside the mainstream willing to pursue these ideas.

Within 'theorising illegal rural enterprise', McElwee et al state that

illegal trading is commonplace within the UK and that it exists in 3 forms '1) the

trading of...