“We work like ants…we avoid being troublemaker”: An exploratory inquiry on resilience of Chinese street vendors in the urban village
International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy
ISSN: 0144-333X
Article publication date: 6 August 2018
Issue publication date: 20 September 2018
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore resilience strategies of Chinese street vendors in a shifted regulatory policy environment from a strength-based and entrepreneurial perspective.
Design/methodology/approach
Drawing upon nine in-depth interviews and naturalistic observations in an urban village of Guangzhou, China, the study empirically investigates how unregulated sidewalk-based hawkers struggle to survive against socioeconomic adversities compared with regulated vendors’ operations in a legitimate transitional market.
Findings
Mirroring a sub-group of rural-to-urban migrants, street vendors espouse subtle strategies centering on purposefulness, resourcefulness and hardiness, which are instantiated through family obligation, sales tactics, merchandising techniques, technology application, trading flexibility, moral sentiment and assistance network. As such, street entrepreneurs are both enacting and constructing resilience in response to specific challenging contexts including impoverishment, operating cost inflation, contingent loss, fierce competition, market uncertainty, intensive workloads, municipal inspection and arbitrary governance practice of village cooperative organization.
Research limitations/implications
Notwithstanding its limited generalizability, the result sheds light on crystallization of street vendors’ resilience and informs social services and policy remedies.
Originality/value
The study provides a frame of reference to examine the interplay of resilience theory from psychology and entrepreneurship thesis from the field of business management by adding new evidence to the research on “entrepreneurial resilience” and potentially serves as a catalyst to enrich existing literature with an integrated perspective to comprehend the coping process of these necessity-driven micro-enterprise operators. The antagonistic understanding of informal economy is so predominating that it obscures structural oppression undermining social justice, whereas the spirit of self-reliance among street entrepreneurs is ought to be respected.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
The author would like to express gratitude to Dr Peter A. Newman of the University of Toronto who provided critical insights for earlier version of this paper. The author also sincerely appreciates two anonymous reviewers for their careful reading and constructive comments. Special thanks go to the street vendor participants in Guangzhou City for their time and willingness to share their knowledge with the author.
Citation
Lin, S.(L). (2018), "“We work like ants…we avoid being troublemaker”: An exploratory inquiry on resilience of Chinese street vendors in the urban village", International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy, Vol. 38 No. 11/12, pp. 1024-1040. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJSSP-01-2018-0008
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2018, Emerald Publishing Limited