Purpose

The study seeks to differentiate informal firms with high-growth prospects by their resource acquisition acts and to improve identification of growth-oriented informal firms for effective design and targeting of support measures.

Design/methodology/approach

An original set of firm-level data was collected using face-to-face survey in Lusaka, Zambia. Six clearly defined criteria were used to sample informal firms, apart from general informal business. Regression analyses were conducted to test the association of different resource acquisition acts with two growth dimensions: number of employees and business earnings of the 325 informal firms sampled.

Findings

Accessing clientele beyond local market, linking up with formal businesses and acquiring information and knowledge via online sources were found influential to growth in business earnings. Surprising, acquisition of finance and skills showed no effect. Employment expansion, though widely used, may not be a stable indicator of informal firm growth.

Research limitations/implications

The study highlights the relevance of the emerging entrepreneurship perspective to understanding the topic. It cautions against pre-setting a size threshold for sampling informal firms and against relying on employment expansion as the sole proxy of growth.

Practical implications

The findings prompt a rethink of the effectiveness of conventional support programmes to drive growth of informal firms such as funding and training. Directing support measures to target growth-oriented informal firms will lead to creation of decent and sustainable jobs and formalisation.

Originality/value

With an original firm-level dataset, the study challenges a long-held assumption that growth of informal firm is negligible and shows that segments of informal firms are sustainable and could attain significant growth and derives new insights into researching and supporting informal firm growth.

中文翻译：

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哪些资源获取行为推动了非正规企业的增长？来自赞比亚的证据

目的

该研究旨在通过其资源获取行为来区分具有高增长前景的非正式公司，并改善对增长型非正式公司的识别，以有效设计和定位支持措施。

设计/方法/方法

一组原始的公司级数据是在赞比亚卢萨卡通过面对面调查收集的。除了一般的非正规企业外，还使用了六个明确定义的标准来对非正规企业进行抽样。进行回归分析以测试不同资源获取行为与两个增长维度的关联：抽样的 325 家非正式公司的员工人数和业务收入。

发现

接触本地市场以外的客户、与正规企业建立联系以及通过在线资源获取信息和知识对企业收益增长有影响。令人惊讶的是，获得资金和技能没有效果。就业扩张虽然被广泛使用，但可能不是非正式企业增长的稳定指标。

研究限制/影响

该研究强调了新兴创业视角与理解该主题的相关性。它告诫不要预先设定非正规企业抽样的规模阈值，也不要依赖就业扩张作为增长的唯一代理。

实际影响

调查结果促使人们重新思考传统支持计划在推动融资和培训等非​​正式公司增长方面的有效性。针对以增长为导向的非正规公司的指导支持措施将导致创造体面和可持续的就业机会和正规化。

原创性/价值

借助原始的公司级数据集，该研究挑战了一个长期存在的假设，即非正式公司的增长可以忽略不计，并表明非正式公司的各个部分是可持续的，可以实现显着增长，并为研究和支持非正式公司的增长提供了新的见解。