DORA :: Browsing by Author "Rodionova, Yulia"

Browsing by Author "Rodionova, Yulia"

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Open Access
Are regulatory interventions seen as an obstacle or an enabler to SME performance and growth in transition economies: a study of gendered perceptions?
(Institute for Small Business and Entrepreneurship, 2014-12-05) Vershinina, Natalia; Rodionova, Yulia; Kitching, John; Barrett, Rowena
Objectives The aim of this paper is to empirically test the influence of the perceived regulatory burden in the context of postcommunist economies on SME performance and growth from a gender perspective. Prior Work The research literature largely argues that regulation is a burden, cost or constraint for SMEs, although recent work suggests regulation has a dual influence, enabling as well as constraining firms. These conflicting influences play out variably for particular firms. Most studies focus on mature market economies where regulatory frameworks are well-established. In this paper we attempt to study the impact of regulation on small enterprises within the context of transition economies from a gender perspective. Approach Using a panel firm-level dataset from the Business Environment and Enterprise Performance survey (BEEPS) of 27 countries in Central and Eastern Europe and Central Asia for 2005-2009, we study whether perceptions of regulatory interventions (tax, licencing and permits, court system, customs, inspections and labour regulations) are seen as obstacles or enablers by firms and whether perceptions differ by gender. We perform difference-in-means tests on various perception and “de facto” indicators of the regulatory environment and estimate a quartile regression model on the pooled-crossed section and the panel data to investigate the influence of dealing with governmental regulations on business performance. To control for reverse-causality, we merge firm-level perceptions with country-level indicators and financial parameters for similar interventions. Results Our preliminary findings from empirical testing suggest that there is variability in regulatory impacts by gender of business owner, firm size and firm age and ownership type. A more nuanced analysis suggests that business regulation enables growth for male-owned firms; while for female owned firms regulatory interventions are more of an obstacle. Implications Failure to understand how regulation affects business performance of female and male owned firms means that policy interventions are likely to produce unwanted consequences because neither the full range of mechanisms shaping small-business performance nor the conditions which support or hinder the exercise of these mechanisms are fully identified. Value Overall, this study seeks to contribute to existing research in the field of gender and entrepreneurship by examining the influence of regulatory burden in the context of post-communist economies rarely studied in the literature, using quantitative techniques that allow generalisation to population of entrepreneurs in transition countries.
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Church and state: An economic analysis.
(Oxford University Press, 2011) Hylton, Keith N.; Rodionova, Yulia; Deng, Fei
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Informal employment dynamics in Ukraine: An analytical model of informality in transition economies
(Wiley, 2013) Commander, Simon; Isachenkova, Natalia; Rodionova, Yulia
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Methodological issues in studying hidden populations operating in informal economy.
(Emerald, 2011-12) Vershinina, Natalia; Rodionova, Yulia; Moguilnaia, Natalia A.
In this paper the issues in studying hidden populations are discussed with particular focus on methodology used to investigate ethnic minority entrepreneurs who illegally run their businesses in the UK. In this paper, on reflection, we look at what issues should be considered before engaging with such communities, as we identify current approaches and evaluate their merits. Certain methodological problems are faced by researchers working with hidden populations, and this paper explores these using a sample of Ukrainian illegal self-employed construction workers operating in London. Semi-structured interviews with 20 Ukrainians showcase the issues raised and help illustrate the limited applicability of some commonly used research methods to ethnic minority entrepreneurship studies. We used intermediary to help gain access to these illegal migrants in order to satisfy the sensitive issues of this vulnerable group of respondents. We analyse the ethical considerations, problems and issues with access to such data, discuss early and more recent sampling methodologies and the ways to estimate the size of hidden population. This paper, hence, establishes the state of the art approaches in this field and proposes potential improvements in achieving representativeness of the data. Using the Ukrainian illegal self-employed construction workers as an example, this paper evaluates the choices made by the researchers. The main contribution of this paper is to showcase the methodological issues emerging when studying hard-to-reach groups and to emphasise the limited applicability of some methods to research on hidden populations.
Open Access
Ownership Structure, Cash Constraints and Investment Behaviour in Russian Firms
(De Montfort University, 2013-10) Buccellato, Tullio; Fazio, Gian; Rodionova, Yulia
Open Access
Process and Dynamics of self-employment of legal and illegal Ukrainian immigrants in London
(2010-04-03) Vershinina, Natalia; Rodionova, Yulia; Moguilnaia, Natalia A.
The paper highlights the process and dynamics of employment of Ukrainian legal and illegal immigrants and barriers for business entry and their sectoral distribution. The study focussed on London examines skills, aspirations and potential of Ukrainian illegal and legal immigrants towards employment and entrepreneurship. This paper explores the Ukrainian people through the investigation of resources they deploy in developing their businesses by using forms of capital framework (Bourdieu, 1983; Nee and Sanders, 2001). The theoretical frame devised for the study is derived from Ram et al (2008) on Somali community and Vershinina et al (2009) on Polish entrepreneurs in Leicester, where both studies took forms of capital approach (Bourdieu, 1983; Nee and Sanders, 2001) and linked motivations for self-employment of these ethnic entrepreneurs to the mixed embeddedness approach (Rath and Kloosterman, 2002). In-depth case studies were undertaken with eleven self-employed Ukrainians legally and illegally operating in London in predominantly construction but also other industries. A snow ball sampling method was used to identify illegal and legal Ukrainians in London similar to approaches used when working with hidden communities (Hamilton, 2006) through an intermediary. Our sample comprises of ten male and one female self-employed workers aged from 25 to 45. The interviews with participants were carried out over the phone, recorded, transcribed and analysed using NVivo, qualitative software package. We found that Ukrainian legal or illegal self-employed individuals were not confined to a niche in the economy, although all started in construction industry due to the availability of work in this sector and reputation East European workers have for being hard-working. When looking at forms of capital Ukrainian respondents mobilise – human, financial, cultural and social – we found that it was not enough only to rely on "social capital" to understand business formation, which is the tendency in ethnic entrepreneurship area. Immigration status has an impact on how well the individuals integrate into host country, and how accessible some forms of capital like cultural and financial are to these individuals. This comparative research provides valuable insights for policy, as there is no estimate of contribution this ethnic group makes to the UK economy, given a large number of immigrants working illegally in the UK. It is clear that all the illegal self-employed individuals who participated in this study say that their prospects of work and ability for business start-up are reliant to a large extent on their ability to legalise. Some of the income generated by these illegal individuals is sent out of the UK to support their families or invest back at home, while some of the income is reinvested in the UK. The paper’s main contributions consist of an innovative deployment of the theoretical models of forms of capital and empirical focus of an ethnic community based in London, which is neglected within current studies of ethnic entrepreneurship. The novelty of this study is the research design that looks at Ukrainian illegal immigrants through the lens of entrepreneurship theory rather than general migration literature.
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Pushed to the Edge: Investigation into Ukrainian Construction Workers Operating in London
(Work, Employment and Society Conference, Migration Track, 2013-09-03) Vershinina, Natalia; Rodionova, Yulia; Ram, Monder; Jones, Trevor
In this article the nature of self-employment of illegal and legal Ukrainian migrants operating in the construction sector in UK is examined. The key aim of this article is to contribute to the discussion on the unexpected ways in which this new migrant community incorporates their self-employment activity, by explaining the patterns of illegality, intertwined with informality that has not been picked up by the extant literature. The approach in this article contrasts the prevailing view in the literature of the illegal migrant worker as “victim or villain”, recently criticised by Anderson and Ruhs (2010). The findings indicate that instead these illegal migrants operate in the labour market in ways similar to non-migrant regular self-employed individuals, and see their illegality as a process rather than final state. The sample of twenty illegal and legal Ukrainian self-employed workers was studied using mixed embeddedness approach for analysing self-employment among ethnic migrants.
Open Access
SME financing and credibility: does entrepreneur’s gender matter?
(Institute for Small Business and Entrepreneurship, 2013-11-11) Marlow, Susan; Vershinina, Natalia; Rodionova, Yulia
Objectives: The aim of this paper is to explore the notion of entrepreneur credibility, a sense of belief or trust in the individual’s ability to fulfill the entrepreneurial role and create and sustain a viable venture, as perceived by key stakeholder in particular from gender perspective. Prior Work: Current literature emphasizes the masculine discourse which informs the idea of the contemporary entrepreneur (Ahl, 2006). Women lack business credibility in the eyes of employees, customers, suppliers and financial institutions (Baines et al., 2003; Belle and La Valle, 2003; Marlow et al., 2008;). It has been suggested that it is both more difficult for women to raise start-up and growth finance (Coleman, 2000; SBA report, 2013) and that women encounter credibility problems (Marlow et al., 2008; Freel et al., 2012) when dealing with banks in particular. Assessing the influence of gender upon entrepreneurial credibility and investigating the implications of such remains difficult. Approach: We address this gap through a quantitative analysis of the relationship between gender and perceived credibility in terms of SME financing, exploring these effects by industry, establishment employment size, and over time. Using a panel firm-level dataset from the Business Environment and Enterprise Performance survey (BEEPS) on 26 countries in Central and Eastern Europe and Central Asia for 2002-2009, we study whether entrepreneur’s credibility with various stakeholders such as banks and informal finance providers differs by gender, estimating fixed/random effects panel data models and also performing propensity score matching on gender variables. Results: Preliminary findings suggest that there is evidence of lower credibility as measured by having an overdraft, checking/savings account, and access to alternative informal sources of financing, of female-owned enterprises for older firms. Results for start-up firms are mixed, which calls for further investigation. Implications: This initial comparative research provides valuable insights for policy. Although there are early indications of lack of credibility shown by female business owners, we question whether the reasons for these findings might lie in the risk-averse type behaviors reported generally in the academic literature, and hence unwillingness of the female business owners to use overdraft facility, and use informal lending as part of fuelling the growth of their business. Value: By offering an attempt to measure female credibility in relation to SME financing we offer an innovative way to study and new interpretations of the access to finance literature.
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Utility payments in Ukraine: Affordability, subsidies and arrears.
(Elsevier, 2008-11) Fankhauser, Samuel; Rodionova, Yulia; Falcetti, Elisabetta

Browsing by Author "Rodionova, Yulia"

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