Abstract
This study critically examines the empowerment process of survival entrepreneurs, focusing on Indonesian street food vendors. Survival entrepreneurs proliferate in developing countries. They normally start their businesses due to unfavourable events or situations that push them into the activity. In this sense, individuals are believed to be driven or forced into survival entrepreneurship by poor economic conditions, lack of job options, and the necessity to survive. Survival entrepreneurs are frequently perceived as lesser entrepreneurs or the poorer cousins of opportunity-driven entrepreneurs. Studies in entrepreneurship go so far as to consider survivalists as not being ‘true’ entrepreneurs because they lack ‘essential’ entrepreneurship characteristics, such as an orientation towards innovation and growth. Due to their marginalised position in society, they are viewed as a community that needs assistance to improve their well-being.
This ‘assistance’ has been provided by numerous top-down empowerment programs initiated by various organisations. These programs may have the unintended consequence of disempowering people rather than empowering them. Such programs can involve imposing the values held by those in power onto those who seek empowerment, directing such people to achieve predetermined goals established by those in power. If those who want empowerment are externally guided and others determine their definition of success, it is equivalent to losing their agency (i.e., disempowerment). Due to the prevalence of such interventions, past studies of empowerment have been focused on assessing top-down empowerment programs rather than understanding the process of empowerment within those who experience it.
Consequently, this study examined the empowerment process utilising a bottom-up approach, focusing on the survival entrepreneurs who run street food vending businesses in Bandung city, Indonesia. Street food vendors were chosen to be participants in this study because they and their businesses are marginalised in society. This study proposes that power differentials cause marginalisation in society and the main principle of empowerment is that it should be centred on the people who experience the empowerment, with the most crucial component being the agency of those people so they can be self-directed.
To explore the above-mentioned propositions, this study conducted twenty-five unstructured interviews with street food vendors. This study had to adapt to the global COVID-19 pandemic. Thus all interviews were conducted online via the Zoom meeting application. This study examined the experience and perceptions of street food vendors through a phenomenological approach. Subsequently, the gathered data were analysed using thematic analysis.
The findings revealed that while the street food vendors in this study are considered as survival entrepreneurs, they also possess a variety of characteristics associated with opportunity-driven entrepreneurs, including achievement orientation, seizing business opportunities, risk-taking behaviour, innovativeness, and efficient resource utilisation. Thus, it is argued that they deserve to be recognised as entrepreneurs. Additionally, this study found that street food vendors possess very subjective and complex definitions of success and failure. Their definitions of success include better quality of life, business growth, and altruistic goals. In comparison, street food vendors defined failure as business failure and personal economic failure. These definitions should be seen as interrelated concepts because every vendor can have multiple perceptions regarding the meaning of success and failure.
Ultimately, the results show that there are three core themes that represent the process of empowerment within the participants of this study (i.e., consciousness, autonomy, and agency). Additionally, while external support is necessary, such aid should not be generalised, as each individual faces unique barriers and requires specific types of support. Hence, interventions should be customised to the unique requirements of marginalised individuals to maximise their benefit. These findings highlight that those who seek empowerment and those who want to help the empowerment of others must keep in mind that the empowerment process comes from the inside of individuals.