The emergence and development of informal entrepreneurship: factors and reasons

Factors and reasons for the emergence and development of informal businesses provide a deeper understanding of the decision-making process by the entrepreneur about the choice of the informal ways of doing business. The purpose of this article is to explore the factors and reasons for the emergence and development of informal businesses, which allows to evaluate the degree of knowledge of the problems, gaps and urgent research areas of informal entrepreneurship.

The study is based on the analysis of scientific articles published in the Scopus and Web of Science journals database for the period from 1984 to 2017.  The main published articles in journals database of the scientific electronic library eLIBRARY.ru over the period from 1995 to 2016 were analyzed. In the present review, 67 research articles related to the issue were analyzed. Analysis of chosen articles was conducted by thorough research and analysis of texts.

The findings show that informal entrepreneurship is a phenomenon inherent in any social system. The results of the study confirm that a variety of factors and reasons for the emergence and development of informal businesses depends on the uniqueness of each country.

The analysis of the factors and reasons for the emergence and development of informal businesses can contribute to decision-making, primarily at the state level, concerning the existing economic problems associated with informal entrepreneurship. Thus, consideration of the factors and causes of the emergence and development of informal businesses can be a part of a state policy on the regularization of informal businesses.

Unlike the previous studies, this scoping study covers a time period starting from the first publications considering both theoretical and empirical studies, which cumulatively allows us to see a more holistic picture of knowledge of the problem. The analysis of studies evaluating the entrepreneurial potential of the economy represents particular value. It is important for Russia, where a significant portion of economic activity is informal.