Small Side Businesses, Real Resilience: Rethinking entrepreneurship in poverty contexts

A/Prof Shahriar Abu Zafar, 2026

Purpose

Professor Shahriar
Abu Zafar.

Low-income workers often rely on insecure, poorly paid employment that leaves households exposed to economic shocks. Abu Zafar Shahriar set out to understand how hybrid entrepreneurship – small side businesses alongside wage work – can strengthen livelihood resilience and wellbeing.

Practice

Using behavioural experiments, surveys and in-depth interviews with low-income workers in Bangladesh's hazardous hand-rolled tobacco industry, the study examined the behavioural drivers of hybrid entrepreneurship as a livelihood strategy.

Output

The research shows hybrid entrepreneurship functions as a practical livelihood strategy, helping vulnerable workers diversify income, strengthen economic resilience and improve both economic and psychological wellbeing.

Outcome and impact

The findings challenge traditional views of entrepreneurship, showing that in poverty contexts it is often a loss-aversion strategy to protect livelihoods rather than an opportunity-seeking pursuit – informing policymakers and development organisations seeking evidence-based approaches to inclusive entrepreneurship and resilience, in support of the UN Sustainable Development Goals.