Home is where the business is: Incidents in everyday life and the formation of home-based businesses

Abstract

Home-based businesses (HBBs) represent an increasingly important form of entrepreneurial activity, yet often remain overlooked within academic literature and largely invisible within official statistics. Set against the background of the home becoming a more common place of business, this article unpacks owner-entrepreneurs’ experiences in forming their HBB. By employing Lefebvre’s concept of everyday life and drawing on de Certeau’s work, it examines the trajectories and tactics of HBB owner-entrepreneurs in the Sheffield City Region in the UK. Focusing on the creative industries sector, the article problematises the push/pull, opportunity/ necessity based binary to elucidate how incidents experienced by HBB owner-entrepreneurs affect the formation of HBBs. The motivations for creating HBBs are shown to be complex, comprising personal and work-related incidents which are related to the lived practices of owner-entrepreneurs. Finally, the article broadens the discussion to reflect on implications for public policy and outlines directions for further research into HBBs as an increasingly pertinent field of entrepreneurship.