Entrepreneurship in Emerging Economies: Mapping Barriers, Challenges, Opportunities, and Threats (BCOT)
Keywords:
Entrepreneurship, Emerging Economies, Barriers, Challenges, Opportunities, Threats, Entrepreneurial EcosystemsAbstract
It is well-established that entrepreneurship in emerging economies can contribute to inclusive growth, innovation and social change. However, entrepreneurial ecosystems in countries like India, Brazil, Vietnam and South Africa remain influenced by systemic barriers, operational challenges, enabling opportunities, and external threats. This review draws on prior work to bring together and share a detailed picture of entrepreneurial process in volatile and resource-constrained settings under the lens of Barriers, Challenges, Opportunities, and Threats (BCOT). The analysis identifies financial exclusion, regulatory inefficiencies, socio-cultural norms, and digital divides as persistent barriers, market volatility, skill mismatch, and scaling up as challenges, and global value chain integration, supportive policy measures, and digital transformation as opportunities, as well as economic shocks, policy uncertainty, and climate-induced risks as threats. BCOT is useful in diagnosing ecosystem conditions, the review is used to highlight significant research gaps including its use mainly in a descriptive sense, few cross-country comparative studies, lack of behavioural/cultural aspects and lack of longitudinal studies. The paper concludes that BCOT can be integrated into a solution-oriented approach like Design Thinking or participatory policy design, which may help to develop more resilient, inclusive, and sustainable entrepreneurial ecosystems. The review provides a context for entrepreneurship within more encompassing institutional, cultural and environmental factors, adding to the knowledge of how emerging economies can use entrepreneurship as a means to achieve long-term transformation.
References
[1] Z. J. Acs et al., The Global Entrepreneurship Index 2018. Global Entrepreneurship and Development Institute, 2018.
[2] J. E. Amorós and N. Bosma, Global Entrepreneurship Monitor: 2013 Global Report. Global Entrepreneurship Research Association, 2014.
[3] A. Sharma and S. Bhardwaj, "Youth entrepreneurship in India: A road ahead," International Journal of Management Studies, vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 15-26, 2020.
[4] V. Mahalakshmi and S. Sharmila, "Barriers to women entrepreneurship in India," Asian Journal of Research in Business Economics and Management, vol. 12, no. 5, pp. 1-12, 2022.
[5] F. Welter, "Contextualizing entrepreneurship: Conceptual challenges and ways forward," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, vol. 35, no. 1, pp. 165-184, 2011, doi: 10.1111/j.1540-6520.2010.00427.x.
[6] A. Garg and A. K. Shivam, "Funding to growing startups," Advances in Natural and Applied Sciences, vol. 11, no. 3, pp. 259-263, 2017.
[7] M. Morazzoni and A. Sy, "Female entrepreneurship, financial frictions and capital misallocation in the US," Journal of Monetary Economics, vol. 125, pp. 1-16, 2022, doi: 10.1016/j.jmoneco.2022.03.001.
[8] M. M. Rahman, A. Salamzadeh, and L. P. Dana, "Shackled feet: A review of women entrepreneurs' challenges in developing countries," Entrepreneurial Business and Economics Review, vol. 12, no. 1, pp. 23-45, 2024, doi: 10.15678/EBER.2024.120102.
[9] S. Revathi and T. Anuradha, "Empirical study of women entrepreneurship and their barriers in India," Studies in Indian Place Names, vol. 40, no. 71, pp. 329-336, 2020.
[10] P. Rajeev and S. Kumar, "Policy bottlenecks in MSME growth," Policy Research Journal, vol. 14, no. 2, pp. 56-70, 2021.
[11] S. Chakraborty and M. Sarkar, "A review of entrepreneurship barriers in developing countries," Academy of Entrepreneurship Journal, vol. 24, no. 4, pp. 1-10, 2018.
[12] D. C. North, Institutions, Institutional Change and Economic Performance. Cambridge University Press, 1990.
[13] E. Autio, M. Kenney, P. Mustar, D. Siegel, and M. Wright, "Entrepreneurial innovation: The importance of context," Research Policy, vol. 43, no. 7, pp. 1097-1108, 2014, doi: 10.1016/j.respol.2014.01.015.
[14] R. Kumar and N. Kumar, "Entrepreneurial challenges in India: A policy analysis," Indian Journal of Economics and Development, vol. 9, no. 1, pp. 1-9, 2021.
[15] E. Manzini, Design, When Everybody Designs: An Introduction to Design for Social Innovation. MIT Press, 2015.
[16] E. Stam, "Entrepreneurial ecosystems and regional policy: A sympathetic critique," European Planning Studies, vol. 23, no. 9, pp. 1759-1769, 2015, doi: 10.1080/09654313.2015.1061484.
[17] Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT), Startup India Progress Report. Ministry of Commerce & Industry, Government of India, 2023.
[18] GEM India Report, National Entrepreneurship Assessment 2022. Global Entrepreneurship Monitor India Consortium, 2022.
[19] International Finance Corporation, Closing the Gender Gap in Access to Finance: A Global Perspective. World Bank Group, 2020.
[20] C. K. Prahalad and S. L. Hart, "The fortune at the bottom of the pyramid," Strategy+Business, no. 26, pp. 2-14, 2002.
[21] United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), World Investment Report 2023: Investing in Sustainable Energy for All. United Nations, 2023.
[22] Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), The Impact of COVID-19 on Entrepreneurship, 2021.
[23] P. Singh and A. Mookerjee, "Examining perceived barriers to entrepreneurial behaviour: A bibliometric study," World Review of Entrepreneurship, Management and Sustainable Development, vol. 19, no. 4, pp. 456-478, 2023, doi: 10.1504/WREMSD.2023.100534.
[24] K. Smit, "Designing a funding platform for startup and investor evolving needs," master's thesis, University of Twente, 2024.
[25] I. Ajzen, "The theory of planned behavior," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, vol. 50, no. 2, pp. 179-211, 1991, doi: 10.1016/0749-5978(91)90020-T.
[26] S. Blank and B. Dorf, The Startup Owner's Manual: The Step-by-Step Guide for Building a Great Company. K&S Ranch, 2012.
[27] E. Ries, The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses. Crown Business, 2011.
[28] A. Osterwalder and Y. Pigneur, Business Model Generation: A Handbook for Visionaries, Game Changers, and Challengers. Wiley, 2010.
[29] R. Tiwari and N. Malhotra, "Socio-cultural factors hindering entrepreneurship in rural India," International Journal of Rural Development, vol. 8, no. 2, pp. 101-115, 2019.
