Business-centered poverty alleviation efforts may have unintended consequences

A new study of entrepreneurial small businesses founded to address rural poverty in Africa finds that the adoption of entrepreneurship models has led to unexpected social changes and that small business owners have It was found that this was a cause of friction and social dissatisfaction.

“This study took place in rural Kenya, in an area where society is collectivistic, where everyone shares what they have and supports each other to the best of their abilities. ,” says study lead author and associate professor Erin Powell. She earned a degree in entrepreneurship from North Carolina State University’s Poole College of Business.

“This is also an impoverished area, and the entrepreneurship program was designed to help community members pursue businesses that would allow them to thrive economically.”

“This research was focused on understanding how people’s religious and faith backgrounds influence their approach to entrepreneurship, and we learned a lot about that. Powell said. “One key finding, however, was that the entrepreneurship program had unintended consequences for both entrepreneurs and other community members.”

For this study, researchers conducted in-depth interviews with 25 participants in an entrepreneurship program in rural Kenya. The interviews were conducted during his six visits over four and a half years, with one of the researchers spending time in each village to understand how the local community interacts with the small businesses involved. I observed.

“One of the things we found is that many community members believe that someone in their community must provide goods and services from a collectivist model where everyone does the best they can for each other. “We’re not happy that we’re moving to an entrepreneurial model where we don’t have to pay fees at a certain rate and at a certain time,” Powell says. “This led to social friction. For example, an entrepreneur was threatened with being cursed and that bad things would happen to him and his family.

“This friction caused some participants in the entrepreneurship program to drop out and return to a collectivist lifestyle. However, others found a way to move forward with entrepreneurship. And our findings suggest that their religious background played an important role here.”

When the study participants first became entrepreneurs, they all faced the threat of being cursed. Some of the study participants adhered to traditional religious beliefs in the area and feared curses. Some of the participants in these studies have ceased to be active as entrepreneurs. However, some people have been able to reconcile their entrepreneurship and religious beliefs by drawing a line between business and personal life.

“In other words, some study participants believed that even if they continued to treat the business itself purely as a business, as long as they were willing to share what they personally owned, the curse would not apply to them.” ” said Powell.

A second subset of study participants identified as Christians and felt that this protected them from the curse.

“Ultimately, we found that study participants who identified as Christians and study participants who held traditional beliefs but kept their business and personal lives separate adopted similar behaviors and I found that I could advance in business and become an entrepreneur,” Powell said. Say.

“One of the takeaways here is that organizations overseeing programs focused on deploying entrepreneurship to alleviate poverty should really consider local cultures and contexts when developing their programs. You can’t assume that a program that works in one place will work, and that a one-size-fits-all approach across multiple cultural contexts can easily lead to unintended consequences. There is a gender. ”

“Programs aimed at alleviating poverty only help some people, but others may be left behind and worse off than they were before the intervention.”

The survey results are business venture journal.