Luca Castellanza, Exchange Programme 2016
Book and chapter synopsis
This book is an ambitious project aiming to be the go-to reference for advancing scholarship on entrepreneurship and economic development and will be published in December 2024. Structured into 29 chapters and four sections, it covers the complex nexus between poverty and entrepreneurship, the contextual dimensions afflicting entrepreneurs living in poverty, the state-of-the-art knowledge on interventions to alleviate poverty through entrepreneurship, and other research implications.
In his chapter, titled “Poor Entrepreneurs’ Strategies to Overcome Resource Constraints”, Dr Castellanza builds on his expertise with entrepreneurship in low-income countries and provides original interview and observational data from some (yet) unpublished studies and evidence from various sources including not only academic texts but also practitioners’ forums, documentaries, and journalistic news to understand the resource constraints and opportunities that characterise poor entrepreneurs’ businesses.
Unfortunately, today’s research on entrepreneurship and poverty alleviation is severely lagging behind development practice and failing to capture the latest innovations, technologies, and participatory processes implemented by entrepreneurs, practitioners, regulators, and other changemakers. Dr Castellanza dismantles several myths surrounding entrepreneurship in poverty settings, delves into the manifold challenges encountered by the poor on a daily basis, and tells the emotional narrative of how poor entrepreneurs may navigate constraints and potentially succeed against overwhelmingly unfavourable odds.
The chapter takes stock of and organises what is known about poverty alleviation through entrepreneurship from extant scientific literature, introduces the latest developments currently happening in the field, advances directions for future research bridging the widening gap between science and practice, and constitutes a must-read text for scholars and development practitioners working in the field at all career levels.
Author’s bio
After attending IIMA in the 2016 Exchange Batch, Luca Castellanza went on to earn a Summa cum Laude doctorate from Mannheim University (Germany) and a Junior Professorship at Maynooth University (Ireland), where he currently lectures in Entrepreneurship, Strategy, and Innovation. He researches and publishes in the areas of entrepreneurship and economic development, human rights, public policy, poverty, sustainability, civil wars, internationalisation, healthcare, and other salient issues concerning business in low-income countries. He also works as a consultant for international NGOs, speaks four languages, and enjoys mountaineering, travelling, and volunteering both in Ireland and abroad.
