Year: 2013
Type: article
Abstract: By Rory LiedemanThis thesis presents a study of spaza shop businesses in the Delft South township, Cape Town, South Africa.The major goal is to establish whether the advent of foreign run spaza businesses is due to a particular 'entrepreneurial' business model underwritten by relatively strong social networks.The study focuses primarily on South African and Somali owned spaza shops as previous research indicates that these are the two major groups of spaza operators in the area.The thesis centres on three core research questions: 1) is there a shift in spaza ownership from South African to Somali shopkeepers in Delft? 2) What are the different spaza business models in operation?3) What is the significance of social networks or relationships to the success of these business models?our understanding of competing business models and the social networks that underwrite them, this research also provides new insights into the significance of spatiality to the spaza economy through the concepts of 'strongholds' and 'neighbourhood economies'; previously unseen forms of spaza related business, principally around the mobile distribution of spaza stock to retailers in Delft South; and the instrumental use of both formality and informality by foreign business people.
Author: Rory Liedeman
Language: English
Subfield: Sociology and Political Science
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2278734675