Congratulations, Sir Moses!

Mr. Moses Manalang, Department Chair of FEU Cavite Higher Education BS Accountancy and Business Administration Programs, successfully presented his research paper entitled “Exploring Necessity Entrepreneurship in the Philippine” to the 9th National Business and Management Conference with the theme “Publish and Flourish: Strengthening Business Education through Research and Capacity-Building” on November 20, 2021.

Mr. Manalang wrote about necessity entrepreneurs who are driven to enter into their own business out of need earn a modest living, and how they mobilize their resources. He also differentiated this type of entrepreneur from an opportunity entrepreneur who engages in a business by choice.

Here is the abstract of his paper:

Little has been written about the necessity entrepreneurs particularly on how they mobilize resources before starting their business. Most of the scholarly articles about this group describe them as unemployed, low-skilled individuals, undercapitalized but still pursue their venture to earn a modest amount just to get through the day for them and their families. In short, necessity entrepreneurs are forced to entrepreneurship contrary to most literature that entrepreneurship is a choice.

The research questions I intend to address in this study are:
1. How do Filipino necessity entrepreneurs mobilize resources to start a venture?
2. How do Filipino necessity entrepreneurs’ resource mobilization process (resource
optimization or resource bricolage) differ from that of the opportunity entrepreneurs?

This study will spotlight necessity entrepreneurs’ resource mobilization and compare it with opportunity entrepreneurs using Desa and Basu (2013) resource mobilization framework. The resource dependence theory (RDT) and the resource-based view (RBV) are the theoretical underpinnings considered in this study to explain the resource mobilization dynamics of necessity entrepreneurs.

Bases on this conceptual framework, I propose the following:

Proposition 1a: Necessity entrepreneurs see no alternative for earning money but to be self-employed forcefully setting their limit to procure resources, are more likely to adopt material resource bricolage.

Proposition 1b: Necessity entrepreneurs who are low-skilled and can’t even be gainfully employed tend to utilize self-taught skills acquired from their home industry are more likely to adopt skill resources bricolage.

Proposition 2a: Opportunity entrepreneurs belong to the upper end of the earnings distribution which means they can procure resources are more likely to adopt material resource optimization.

Proposition 2b: Further, opportunity entrepreneurs, who possess a high human endowment that enable them to innovate products using their skills are more likely to adopt skill resources optimization.

A positivist multiple case study research design will be used to approach the aims of this study. On a positivist paradigm, data will be taken “as is”. In-depth interview will be the main activity in collecting data using a semi-structured interview guide. Positivist case study will involve pattern matching technique in data analysis to confirm if the Case narratives follow the pattern of the framework or whether the interview results are congruent to the propositions presented. Rival explanations will be sought when patterns do not coincide. A case study protocol is also developed to allow the logic of replication. Data collection through semi- structure interview of selected cases is on-going.

Keywords:
necessity entrepreneurship, resource mobilization, bricolage, resource optimization, resource- based view, resource dependence theory, case study.