Global Street Economy and Micro Entrepreneurship: Volume 103

The need for policy to focus on Gozo in the overall developmental needs of Malta is justified on the basis of the indispensable contribution provided by Gozo to the national economy as well as its positive economic growth and well-educated labour force. This indicates that Gozo is not a region to be abandoned but one that requires policy actions to support the growth of micro and small business, facilitate employment, improve residential attractiveness in the territory and develop innovative approaches towards the sustainable development of the island region. The Gozo success story must be extended further, and there is more in the pipeline to sustain and support the restructuring of existing businesses as well as attract new small and micro business that has a strong strategic fit with Gozo’s development model.

Street economy (SE) is defined as the exchange of all kinds of goods and services in public areas, streets, street corners and squares. As in all sectors, SE is composed of two main parts as registered and unregistered. Again, it is divided into two parts as legitimate and illegitimate social and economic activities, in the extent of the limitlessness of human needs and the relatively limited resources. SE consists of all kinds of economic, social, cultural and artistic activities that are carried out on the streets. Virtual streets are added to real streets with globalisation and digitalisation. It is observed that the very small-scale street trade, which is expected and predicted to disappear in the last century, has become more widespread and effective in contrast to all these predictions and expectations. In this chapter, it is foreseen that the SE, with all its sub-sectors, has not yet been measured with its sub-sectors, and with its global buyers and sellers having reached the enormous dimensions that affect the daily life of 5 billion people out of the 8 billion world population. Quantitative indicators compiled from databases show that this set of street traders has reached a global trade volume of $30 trillion under the common denominators. With a volume of $30 trillion, SE has attracted the attention of the producers and investors of street robots as well as other entrepreneurs and researchers. SE, which has been expected to be eliminated and not seen as worthy by economists and politicians, has been the sole supplier of the needs of the poor, with hundreds of sub-sectors. It is seen as the easiest, most common job opportunity of the unemployed. In this chapter, the functions, its place in the city life, its added value at the local and national levels and its problems and global solution proposals of the SE, which is expected to become more important in the world agenda, will be discussed.

Core economy is defined as the economic activity, which is mostly underestimated as the non-market economy. As a result of certain concurrent studies, it is however estimated to be 25% of the economy of the USA with 1.91 trillion USD for the year 1998, which can’t be measured directly in spite of generating direct benefits. District bazaars and marketplaces and the street economy, an intersection point of the ones tired of suppression and tyranny of the Landowners and Sheikhdom, snowed under the sectarian conflicts, the ones feeling outcasted from the society, who would like to enjoy the benefits of modern life, the ones without the sufficient capital to establish a business or a regular business, the ones who would like to contribute to their families, the ones who are outside and excluded from the professional life; some of the ones are thugs and ramblers and lumpen, and the ones with no jobs and got nothing as defined as ‘Bosiacs’ by Maxim Gorki.

Street economy encouraging self-sufficiency at the local, village and district levels could be considered as a viable alternative to the neoliberal model of globalisation of social production and services. In a way street economy resembles pre-industrial agrarian economic institutions being centres of local production/manufacturing and marketing with very less cash inputs, mostly based on exchange of goods. Labour intensive tasks like creating infrastructure for water harvesting, drought relief and flood control are preferred. The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Act 2011 is a great success with all its limitations and drawbacks as it has prevented internal migration during off-season of agricultural work and providing succour to families in the villages. Street Vendors Act 2014 is another landmark legislation aimed at providing social security and livelihood rights to street vendors, has its origins in the street vendors’ policy introduced in 2004, which was later revised as National Policy on Urban Street Vendors 2009.

The integration of the urban people to the city is on the one hand the integration of the physical and natural structure of the city with human element, and on the other hand, integration of urban people with each other by acquiring urban culture. City streets are mostly inhabited by street residents, which include street vendors, who sell products changing from food to textile, arts and crafts or music in an affordable price to city dwellers, and also people who, for economical, psychological or sociological reasons, live in the streets such as beggars and homeless people. If the spirit of a city can exist within the common production and living space of the people who make that city, then it means that the cities lose their souls to exclude those who choose to live on the streets or those who earns their living on the street. If no one can exist without the other, then the existence of the mainstream labour market of the city would only be possible by accepting street residents, whether the ones who choose to live in the streets or earns a living in the streets, who it has marginalised by ignoring and pushing outside the orthodox norms of the city life.

This study analyses the management of street businesses by their owners. In this chapter, it is aimed to discuss the street economy from a managerial perspective. Accordingly, the planning, organising, coordinating, leading, and controlling processes of street economy were the focal points of this study. Again, the business functions such as marketing, purchasing, production, finance, public relations, and research and development are the dimensions evaluated in this context. Accordingly, the answer of ‘Do the sole proprietorships have a management?’ is analysed. ‘The management of street economy’ or ‘the management in street economy’ has different elements. The concept includes the management of the street enterprises by their owners or founders. At the same time, the term also can have the meaning which is linked with the governments: the management of a hidden, or a shadow economy.

Does the media through its news convey us their categorisation, have particular lexical choices, give less space or voice to the actors regarding the news that mentioned street vendors in Turkey? The research question of this study is that whether or not the print media covers street vendors in their news? What is the tone of these news articles? In which pages do they cover? What are the news themes related with street vendors and who are the main actors in this news? This chapter presents a systematic study of 100 news articles which were published between 2016 and 2018 in Turkey’s mainstream, popular newspaper Hürriyet. The 100 news which included the word ‘street vendor’ in the texts were selected from the Hürriyet’s database and categorised and the content of the news articles were analysed. Findings of the of 100 news articles which mentioned ‘street vendor’ were researched and analysed totally. The analysis already reveals that the word choice of the news articles regarding street vendors are often conflict stories between the vendors and municipality police forces namely ‘Zabıta’ in Turkey. In sum, there were 19 news articles that referred street vendors with positive tone and wording, but 68 news articles still depicted street vendors in negative framing and use negative attribution in the text of the news. Totally 16 news articles included by-line and the rest of the 84 news articles did not include the journalist’s name and were covered as anonym. Out of the 100 news articles only a handful focussed on the advocacy and rights of street vendors.

The issues of development and democracy have ceased to be the internal problems of the countries and have become a dynamic factor in the international relations as regional and global issues. The problems that are difficult to solve such as the production insufficiency overwhelming the countries just like a national nightmare most of which have the roots that actually go out in one way or the other, the lack of economic capacity, the low technology level, the lack of qualified school curriculum, the private sector which is not sufficiently developed in many areas, the state and private sector relations having remained away from the plural capacity and governance and that the injustice revenue distribution and the opportunities to obtain unfair wealth wear down the working and undertaking desires of the productive population are the primary development problems. This study aims to criticise the street economy, micro entrepreneurship and how can it be a macro step for development and democracy and to determine the importance of street economy and street vendors for global economy.

In advanced market economies, multinational companies have 4.0 concept for their international value chain. In this study, some of the distinguishing features of 4.0 are discussed as follows: smart products’ development which has location information; realisation of new business models such as using new services for employees in the workplace; individual differences in social infrastructure; sensitive new job structure; and better work–life balance. Low cost, rapid deployment, longevity, low maintenance costs, high quality of service to the application conditions, design of components and features of the platform and application of a low laborious platform-related monitoring with re-all design levels, are focussed on the launching properties. With this approach, it attracts ‘consensus’ phenomenon; and art market price changes of the street stock market movements are at risk from external factors, such as the ‘consensus’ which can manipulate and sign the market prices largely.

First of all, street economy should be accepted as an economical power by everybody, and the legislations should be arranged according to developing conditions of the country and the world. However, children under the age of 15 should not be involved in formal or informal street economy in any case. For this issue, occupations that will contribute to mental and psychological developments of children can be provided by adults and experts in vocational skill courses. Children who are oriented towards the occupation should develop their vocational education in the fields of hobby and art in Children and Youth Centers. For example, children with a hobby of music and playing should learn their hobbies in controlled courses.

This chapter discusses The Context of Street Vendors in India: A Tale of Invisible Visibility in August during the Executive Committee Meeting of National Alliance of Street Vendors of India (NASVI). During the Mumbai workshop, a vendor talked about the idea of a Natural Market, as a place where buyers naturally congregated, such as at a temple or a hospital, as opposed to places where municipal authorities attempted to rehabilitate evicted vendors where buyers did not come automatically. The Street Vending Act states that no existing street vendor can be displaced until the local authorities conduct a census of street vendors in the concerned urban centre and prepare a City Vending Plan. Representatives of street vendors will constitute 40 per cent of its membership and women will comprise at least 33 per cent of the street vendors’ representatives. Another factor which brought vendors closer to NASVI is its holistic understanding of vendors’ needs.

Afghanistan has been a country that has a long history of combating against the wars, civil and otherwise, and where the people, who escape from the terrorist organisations and the vulnerable state authority, predominantly migrate to its capital. The number of people, who leave their lands and possessions behind just to reach the capital city of Kabul, reaches to millions. Those people, who escaped from the oppression, persecution and terror, make their living as street vendors. The number of people, who live by working as street vendors and who seriously contribute to the national economy, is considerably high.

In this study, in addition to the positive contributions of the street trade on the national economy, employment and socio-cultural life, its positive aspects that are reflected upon the security, health and culture and the problems and ways to solve those problems shall be identified.

Izmir, the third largest city of Turkey, is an important trade hub and port. Since its early years, the city has been the home of many civilisations, nations and cultures. The Romani people can be counted among these cultures. In the centre of Izmir city, there are around 500,000 Romani inhabitants. The increasing number of migrants to Izmir and the obligatory settlement options, usually in poorer neighbourhoods, aggravates the situation. Within this context, the focus of administrative authorities on poorer neighbourhoods with a significant Romani majority and its effects to and connections with the urban improvement programme must be re-evaluated considering the benefit of the city and social-institutional support, including non-governmental institutions, must be maintained.

When we are going to talk about the streets, we cannot start without mentioning the real owners of streets. Who are the real owners of streets? While speaking about the street economy, during the presentation in the International Romani Symposium in Mersin, Dr Osman Sirkeci said that Romani are the real owners of streets. Romanis, who immigrated from India to all around the world a thousand years ago and were forced or abandoned to live in streets, are the real owners of streets. They were forced to earn their life in the jobs which are the most difficult and reprehensible in the known sites. However, they were assigned to make in such works as pin, spear, sword, groom, cart, wheel, iron, steel, which were used in wars; they were tinsmith, blacksmith, coppersmith, handworkers, entertainers and musicians.

In Mezitli, there are many projects contributing to the street economy. As a good example, let me talk about Women Market, the bazaar where only women can put up their products for sale. In different regions, Mezitli has nine different bazaars in which 600 women open their stands. Women contribute their own house economy by selling their own products including fresh fruits and vegetables, knitting and handmade objects. The municipality doesn’t request any payment or rent from those women for their stands and electricity they use during their stay. The prices and quality and hygiene conditions are ensured with the help of a professional from the municipality.

Recycling Workers Association (RWA), founded in 1993, has been the oldest associations in Turkey advocating the rights of recycling workers and conducting studies to ensure the security of their business through organisation. There were more than 2,000 families in Ankara, who emigrated from Gaziantep and lived in the Çankaya district of Ankara. We, as RWA, gained legal status by integrating with Çankaya Municipality’s licenced waste collection company. In the same year, the company we worked with was successful and received an award. Our work in this business, as being the first one in Turkey, has become known throughout Turkey and some provinces (Antalya, Gaziantep, Konya and Adana) began to implement the project. Our project was heard in foreign countries such as Norway and Germany.

In this research, the effect of green logistics in e-commerce on consumer purchasing behaviour is examined. Companies that have adopted green logistics are thought to be effective on consumer’s product preferences. Businesses are sensitive to changing environmental conditions and changing consumer behaviour and that they adopt green logistics in line with their development goals is a factor that can affect the purchasing behaviour of consumers. Therefore, ‘adoption of the green principle’ becomes a social and global phenomenon.

When consumers evaluate a product or service, they look at not only product performance and quality, but also the environmental impact of the product. The fact that the enterprises realised this, their responsibilities in terms of environmental impact, their achieving competitive advantage, and their aim to strengthen their brand image in the market led them to adopt the green principle. In this respect, the importance of R&D studies has been understood and activities related to this subject have increased. These activities ultimately reduced both living conditions and lifecycle costs. Green brand awareness has increased in consumers. The use of technology in commerce has expanded e-commerce and has become a part of life. In this context, it should be investigated whether the development of environmental consciousness of the consumer in e-commerce has an effect on the product selection. According to the findings of the research about the effect of green logistics practices on the buying behaviour of firms, it is determined that the environmental awareness and demands of the consumers are highly effective in the adoption of green logistics and that the green logistics practices in e-commerce affect the purchasing behaviour of the consumers. At this point, a green approach in national or international commercial activities has been exhibited and also needs to be executed.