Business on the Border of Breakdown : An Interdisciplinary Study of Entrepreneurs inKabul, Afghanistan

Abstract: Afghanistan has experienced a civil war since the last three decades that has causedenormous damages to infrastructure and incredible human suffering. Insecurity is not only fromterrorists, many Afghans rank political gridlock and deeply rooted corruption as worse. A modelby Bullough et al. provides risk perception, resilience and self-efficacy as determinants forentrepreneurial intentions. The study aggregates resilience and self-efficacy into a psychologicalperspective that, together with a non-monolithic perspective on risk, generates a new model offorces. Vectors illustrate how these forces can balance each other out. The result is a useful modelto detail entrepreneurship under the adverse conditions in Kabul, where entrepreneurs experiencekidnapping as their primary personal risk while administrative threats related to corruption,informality and poor governance are seen to carry an almost equal amount of risk.