Entrepreneurship from an Emerging Nation: A Case Study from Cebu, Philippines

This study looked at entrepreneurship from the entrepreneurs’ viewpoint on what enabled them to start their businesses. A semi-structured survey was used on 124 respondents – all business owners of micro-, small-, and medium-sized enterprises – who were selected via purposive and snowball sampling. Cross-tabulation, the Mann-Whitney U test (or Wilcoxon Rank Sum test), odds ratio, and logistic regression were performed to analyze the data and determine their enabling factors. The results reveal that those who planned to become entrepreneurs and those who did not have a similar personality, come from diverse educational backgrounds, and have social support and network. These findings highlight the importance of self-confidence, being inspired by successful entrepreneurs, and belonging to a peer group engaged in business. The results also reveal that the entrepreneurs’ confidence to start their businesses is triggered by the positive motivation from their social support and network. The motivation is enough to surmount their perceived obstacles to entrepreneurship – the lack of capital and government support.