Entrepreneurs and Scale: Interactional and Institutional Constraints on the Growth of Small-Scale Enterprises in Brazil

Abstract

Comparing enterprises in terms of scale helps to reveal the social, economic, and political conditions that brought about their emergence and indicates factors that might impede or enhance entrepreneurial expansion. A focus on scale adds dynamism to the study of entrepreneurship because this conceptual approach requires an integrated analysis of enterprises and entrepreneurial careers to show the interrelation of their innovative strategies and differential developments. This argument is illustrated by a description ofthe successes and failures of small-scale entrepreneurs in two fishing villages in Northeast Brazil. The data demonstrate that the strategies entrepreneurs develop in the initial stage oftheir careers to solve predominantly interactional problems tend to fail beyond the boundaries of the local social environment. In urban centers, expanding enterprises encounter institutional impediments on scale enlargement that have to be overcome with innovative actions.