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Bricolage and informal businesses: Young entrepreneurs in the mobile telephony sector in Accra, Ghana

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posted on 2022-01-17, 13:45 authored by Robert Lawrence Afutu-Kotey, Katherine V. GoughKatherine V. Gough
The concept of bricolage has primarily been used in exploring how entrepreneurs in the formal sector, in addition to social entrepreneurs, mobilise resources in developing their businesses. Little is known, however, about the bricolage experiences of young informal entrepreneurs in the rapidly changing, technologically driven mobile telephony sector. Drawing on qualitative field research with young people involved in informal support services in the mobile telephony sector in Accra, Ghana, the paper reveals the existence of various kinds of bricolage processes employed in the running and sustenance of their businesses. The findings show evidence of young people switching from one business to another, engaging in business diversification, utilising pre-existing skills, and employing bottom-up approaches through their social networks in mobilising resources — all of which relate to bricolage processes of improvisation, ‘making do’ and refusing to be constrained by limitations in the resource environment. Although young people are shown to utilise strategies of self-support and ingenuity in running and sustaining their businesses, the paper concludes by calling for a more supportive institutional framework in order to propel the businesses of young people into the future.

History

Department

  • Geography and Environment

Published in

Futures

Volume

135

Publisher

Elsevier BV

Version

  • AM (Accepted Manuscript)

Rights holder

© Elsevier

Publisher statement

This paper was accepted for publication in the journal Futures and the definitive published version is available at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.futures.2019.102487.

Acceptance date

2019-11-12

Publication date

2019-11-14

Copyright date

2022

ISSN

0016-3287

Language

  • en

Depositor

Prof Katherine Gough. Deposit date: 28 November 2019

Article number

102487

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