IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ehl/lserod/122073.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

From ecosystems to advicescapes: business, development and advice in Sri Lanka and Bangladesh

Author

Listed:
  • Lewis, David
  • Bowers, Rebecca
  • Heslop, Luke
  • Tawfic, Simon

Abstract

The provision of entrepreneurship advice is a growing feature of private sector development in South Asia but has so far received little attention from researchers. The article explores the theme of business advice in Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, drawing on recent ethnographic fieldwork among advice seekers to explore the significance of low-income households of business advice within the unfolding processes of both marketization and state support. It offers a theoretical innovation in the concept of ‘advicescape’, supported by ethnographic materials conveying local-level perspectives and experiences of business advice users. Despite the growth of a complex business support ecosystem in each country, the article finds that many such people are falling through the cracks, in that they face problems accessing advice, find its quality variable and instead rely heavily on informal advice. It ends with reflections on the now dominant business-and-development approach, including a brief observation on improving the inclusivity and effectiveness of entrepreneurship advice.

Suggested Citation

  • Lewis, David & Bowers, Rebecca & Heslop, Luke & Tawfic, Simon, 2024. "From ecosystems to advicescapes: business, development and advice in Sri Lanka and Bangladesh," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 122073, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    • Handle: RePEc:ehl:lserod:122073
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/122073/
    File Function: Open access version.
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Schuster, Caroline & Kar, Sohini, 2021. "Subprime empire: on the in-betweenness of finance," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 112809, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.

      More about this item

      Keywords

      Anthropology and development; Bangladesh; business development; development policy; entrepreneurship; South Asia studies; Sri Lanka; The Atlantic Equity Challenge (AEQ); a research grant programme developed and funded by the Atlantic Fellows for Social and Economic Equity (AFSEE) at the International Inequalities Institute; Sage deal;
      All these keywords.

      JEL classification:

      • R14 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - General Regional Economics - - - Land Use Patterns
      • J01 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - General - - - Labor Economics: General

      NEP fields

      This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

      Statistics

      Access and download statistics

      Corrections

      All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ehl:lserod:122073. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

      If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

      If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

      If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

      For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: LSERO Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/lsepsuk.html .

      Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

      IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.