Entrepreneurship in Developing Markets: Three Studies About Relational, Political, and Institutional Factors That Shape Entrepreneurial Performance in Togo

Abstract

This dissertation is a study of the factors that affect business performance for entrepreneurs in developing countries. The studies in this dissertation use data from a field experiment, a longitudinal survey, coding of newspaper articles, and interviews conducted in Togo to examine three distinct phenomena that influence entrepreneurial performance in developing markets. The first study examines the role of cooperative frames in the formation of new business relationships among entrepreneurs. This study shows that cooperative frames help catalyze the formation of new relationships that add diversity to entrepreneurs’ networks and improve business performance for entrepreneurs. The second study considers the effects of exposure to political violence on entrepreneurs’ business performance and potential strategies to buffer them from the effects. I find that proximity to violent protests dramatically reduces profits, but that these losses can be mitigated through social resilience, defined as being embedded in a network of peer advisors and the local community. Finally, my last study examines how the effect of legal registration of entrepreneurs’ businesses varies by entrepreneurs’ gender. Although male entrepreneurs benefit from the legal registration of their businesses, women entrepreneurs benefit even more because it helps mitigate negatively biased evaluations of them. These studies touch on a variety of relational, political, and institutional factors that shape the dynamics of entrepreneurial performance in developing markets. In doing so, they contribute to organization theories about network formation, relational strategies and social movements, as well as the interplay of formal institutions and cultural status beliefs.