Entrepreneurial Competency and Well-Being of Street Entrepreneurs: A Conceptual Model for Poverty Alleviation in Digital Era

Abstract

The present study specifically concentrates on the subsistence entrepreneurship backdrop, where people are engaging in entrepreneurial activities and business creation due to poverty and necessity motives. This research portrays street vendors as street entrepreneurs doing business from a temporary built-up structure or even without a roof on the pavements, public places, and busy marketplaces. These vendors possess several entrepreneurial traits and skills but are not formally recognised or appreciated in most cases. If their business life is shaped and upgraded most effectively, there will be a widespread impact on the life of millions of people on a single go. The purpose of this study is to conceptualise the linkage of entrepreneurial competency and the well-being of street vendors at the base of the pyramid, where people are suffering from severe resource constraints. The study proposes that vendors' digital payment adoption intention, market orientation, and selling skills are influential predictors of vendors' entrepreneurial competency. Further, the moderating roles of entrepreneurial bricolage and institutional support are also being discussed in the framework. The study can better consider as an integration of the UTAUT model of technology acceptance and theory of entrepreneurial bricolage. By viewing these underprivileged people's well-being through the lens of entrepreneurial competency, an attempt is made here to extend the understanding of where the upcoming research in the subsistence entrepreneurship domain needs to move in.