Introduction

The study of the phenomenon of entrepreneurship is taking on a quite distinct importance because it influences the personal and community level wellbeing, and is an issue of political, economic, social, environmental and intellectual interest. At the global level, it is considered an instrument used to combat poverty (^{Sigalia and Carney, 2012}), and to reduce the level of unemployment and for local economic development (^{Rodríguez Pose and Palavicini, 2013}). In other terms, this phenomenon helps to struggle against delinquency and migration, among others. The people who do business because they don’t have another work option are known as necessity entrepreneurs (^{Baptista, Karaöz and Mendonça, 2014}; ^{Texis, Ramírez and Aguilar, 2016}), although for ^{Acs (2006}) these activities do not influence the economic growth of a country, although the sum of all of these has something to do with the Gross Domestic Product.

Lending money to invest in a business is a matter of entrepreneurs, regardless of the level of the enterprise. There are different categories of micro, small, medium and large enterprises, and each country defines them based on certain criteria (generally size and income). However, because they are of very small size, the activities that generate income have been ignored as a category of microenterprises (^{Verrest, 2013}), although the microfinance industry is devoted primarily to tending to this category of entrepreneurs because microfinance is based on the logic that if the poor have access to financial services they can begin or expand a microbusiness and from there get out of that situation (^{Arora and Singhal, 2013}). From this perspective, many questions arise:

These questions suggest a variety of studies in the area of entrepreneurship at the micro level, since they can contribute to offering better services and adapting them to the profiles of microentrepreneurs. With regards to the last question, ^{Gundry and Welsch (2001}:455) suggest: “if the decision of beginning a business is a choice made by the founder, it can be assumed that the decision to expand it is a choice by the same person”. In practice, what microfinancing institutions (MFI) do is to send their credit agents to offer their services to those who have microbusinesses and almost do not make an in-depth analysis of the microentrepreneur’s profile. This results in many problems for the business owners in terms of reimbursement, on the one hand, and on the other, problems for the MFIs in terms of money losses. It has been found that functioning microbusinesses take better advantage of the credits than those of recent creation and serious problems of fungibility take place regarding the destination of money (^{Rodríguez, Raccanello and Aguilar, 2015}). A way to avoid these problems is to study the questions related to the creation of the business, which is the reason for this study.

The owners of microbusinesses are subject of microcredits; not only is the private sector interested to microentrepreneurs through microfinance. In México there are many government programs that are focused on people self-employing both in the urban and the rural sector (^{Rivera-Huerta, López and Mendoza, 2016}). For example, there are the following: Program of Promotion for Self-Employment, Program of Backing for Young Agrarian Entrepreneurs, Program of Backing for the Productivity of Women Entrepreneurs, National Program of Financing for Microentrepreneurs (PRONAFIM), these being some government initiatives in this sense. In addition to these two (MFI and Government), several universities promote the training of students to graduate as entrepreneurs and not as job seekers. To fulfill this, the students receive courses related to entrepreneurship and little is known about whether they actually can launch a business. In literature they only make estimations about the probability of students managing to create their business (^{Boudabbous, 2011}; ^{Backes-Gellner and Moog, 2013}). Assuming that some students start microbusinesses, the ways they begin are different from the way peasants do, who generally have few years of study and most have not taken business courses.

The type of microentrepreneurs of interest in this study are those who do not expect either government programs or MFIs, nor any training to start their businesses, which makes them differ quite a lot from the trend of formal entrepreneurship (^{Fortunato, 2014}). They are microentrepreneurs who live in rural areas, who face a group of problems like any entrepreneur; although both peasants and capitalist entrepreneurs do business to obtain money, the main objective is not the same; beyond that, there are other differences (Table 1).

These differences are reflected in the level of money, the growth models, as well as the aspirations. The entrepreneurial behaviors and profiles of entrepreneurs are different (^{Verrest, 2013}). Likewise, differences are seen in what provokes the creation of the enterprises: Necessity and Opportunity (^{Baptista et al., 2014}; ^{Morales et al., 2015}; ^{Texis et al., 2016}). This situation gives rise to the doubt of knowing about the creation profiles of the microenterprises, with the central question being: which are the creation profiles of microenterprises in the rural areas of developing countries, especially in Santa Bárbara Almoloya? The answer implies studying the combination of known factors that influence business creation in the context of peasants.

Theoretical framework: sustainable livelihoods and motivation

^{Gibb and Ritchie (1982}) were the first to establish the elements that an entrepreneur must fulfill to create a microenterprise. These authors present four elements to obtain a successful beginning: “the motivation or determination, the idea or market, the resources, and finally the skills”. Within these there are some that do not serve rural microentrepreneurs, such as the idea assessment and the market study. Business creation does not happen from one day to the next, that is why it is called a process, and recent studies call the people who are undergoing this process “emerging entrepreneurs” (^{Davidsson and Honig, 2003}; ^{Kim, Aldrich and Keister, 2006}). During it, these people combine several factors that may be summarized in two: “capitals and motivation”.

In the rural environment these capitals used to explain business creation fall into the approach of sustainable livelihoods managed by the United Kingdom’s Department for International Development (DFID). This approach is used by many researchers to study rural development (^{Bennett and Franzel, 2009}; ^{Mummidi, 2009}; ^{Ansoms and McKay, 2010}); however, other researchers use capitals to explain business creation, although with small differences (Table 2).

These capitals not only favor the creation of businesses, but rather allow competitiveness and are tangible and intangible (^{Fuentes, Osorio and Mungaray, 2016}). Human capital is made up of the abilities, capacities and acquired knowledge and can be generated via education both formal and informal (^{Baptista et al., 2014}). Experience in work or in a business of their own is an important element to consider in informal education because it allows accumulating knowledge and skills. For some authors, the individuals that own human capital of higher quality will identify better the entrepreneurial opportunities (^{Davidsson and Honing, 2003}). For some authors, individuals who own human capital of higher quality will identify better entrepreneurial opportunities (Davidsson and Honing, 2003). With this assertion there are authors who consider that it is not the individuals with high levels of human and social capitals who manage to create businesses, but rather those that have these capitals at a balanced level and combined with experience (^{Backes-Gellner and Moog, 2013}). The rural population, generally, does not have a high level of education and the few sources of work available are not generally a business.

The prediction of the creation of an enterprise is studied by factors such as work experience, level of education, etc., and dichotomous variables are generally used (^{Kim et al., 2006}; ^{Elam, 2008}), which implies loss of information. There is a probability that the experience does not have any connection with the enterprise created. For ^{Baptista et al. (2014}), work experience is useful when the business created is within the same sector. In this study we take the perception of owners of microenterprises regarding the way they used the elements of human capital to create their microbusinesses.

Social capital in businesses creation takes place in many ways. As an asset that people obtain when being in contact with others (^{Coleman, 1988}), this capital is obtained through the influence of others, of some type of support to create the business. According to ^{Elam (2008}) the central question of social capital is: “Who does he/she know?” Although it can be that a person knows many people yet they cannot offer support to create a microenterprise or do something else. In this sense there is differentiation between the types of social capital. ^{Davidson and Honig (2003)} present social capital in three dimensions: union or bridge, correlation and approximation. In the first there are socially close relationships (intense feelings of connection), in the second the social relationships are moderately close (respect, trust and comradeship), and lastly, there are asymmetrical relationships between people who have few points of agreement (president and citizen).

Within its operational framework, social capital is taken by some researchers as participation or belonging to some organization, group, ethnic group (^{Narayan and Pritchett, 1999}); in it, there are regulations, reciprocity, and trust. Regarding the definition by ^{Elam (2008}), knowing other people happens through participation in a group. The variable “knowing another person or other entrepreneurs” has been quite studied as social capital, particularly by researchers who take the approach of Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM). In this study, social capital is considered in its three forms: influence from other entrepreneurs, amount of help received, and participation in a group.

The financial capital is another factor for the creation of businesses; typically it is what someone possesses in terms of money (^{Elam, 2008}). The rural population, subject of this study, does not have much money and combines resources in several ways to ensure its survival. In this perspective microfinance comes in, providing access to money in a different way than financial traditions. ^{Belwal et al. (2014}) found that financial resources and access to external resources are the main barriers for women entrepreneurs. There are those who found that microentrepreneurs who use external loans from banks, clients and suppliers, to begin a business are more efficient than those who begin with their own resources and those of their relatives and friends (^{Hernández-Trillo et al., 2005}).

Despite their importance, having the money is not enough; there needs to be knowledge about what will be done with it (^{Elam, 2008}). The concept of cultural capital enters there, which is based on what is known or the way of thinking, feeling and doing. The operationalization of cultural capital consists in the variables age, education and experience; thus, this capital coincides with the elements of human capital. ^{Kim et al. (2006}) consider cultural capital as having the parents as entrepreneurs, which will influence the child to create his/her business. There, cultural capital tends to enter social capital; knowing other entrepreneurs and their influence not only happens in the family, but rather in larger chains where the future entrepreneur gets aspiration from watching others. Thus, this influence can come from the three types of social capital identified previously.

^{Elam (2008}) presents symbolic capital as the symbolic strength in its pure form, such as influence, prestige, social status. These values are sought and this search for values is translated in this study as the motivational element. This factor allows the separation of people who create businesses against those who do not.

Social, financial and human capitals are generally used to explain business creation, but fail when they are unable to respond why not all people create enterprises while they have access to these capitals. The psychological approach of businesses is an element that provides the response to this question. ^{Mummidi (2009}) attempts to understand why women carry out or not the activities that generate income and their sustainability based only in some components of human capital and motivation. According to this author, these elements can help to see the impact of microfinance, although they are not the only ones that define the creation of these activities.

People are in search for something satisfactory for their life and this is translated by personal economic independence, being active or from a need for social interaction and to obtain social recognition (^{Anthopoulou, 2010}). There is no doubt that people who do microbusinesses in rural communities are survival entrepreneurs. In the contrary sense to what ^{Elam (2008}) points out with symbolic capital, not all entrepreneurs seek these values. There are economic and non-economic objectives that people have when creating a business (^{Kantis et al., 2002}). In terms of motivation, not only the objectives make people create businesses. Business creation is an action and all human action can be studied from its planned behavior, whose determinant is intention (^{Ajzen, 1991}). In other words, the intentionality will give place to the action. For ^{Bird (1988}), intention is a process and begins with the needs, values, and beliefs. In certain cases, the intention does not give rise to the action because it is planned and this has to do with time (^{Davidsson, 1995}).

All of this allows advancing that business creation takes place differently in individuals with the combination of capitals and motivation. There are almost no studies that establish profiles of entrepreneurs at the moment of beginning their business, using all the capitals and motivation, since with just the capitals a business is not started. ^{Heirman and Clarysse (2004}) found four creation profiles, but they are based on financial, technological and human resources. This study attempts to cover the void in establishing the models of microenterprise creation in the rural environment.

Methodology

The study was developed in the locality of Santa Bárbara Almoloya, San Pedro Cholula, Puebla, with people who have some sort of microenterprise. The geographical coordinates of the community are: latitude 18.8875 and longitude -98.2826; its population is 4200 inhabitants. In this community there isn’t a list of all microenterprises, since informality in this type of business in the whole Mexican territory is non-viable. There is a lack of research regarding these types of businesses in the zone. The locality has a higher number of microbusinesses than the localities that surround it.

Sampling was made to establish the list of these units in this locality. As mentioned, the opening and closing of an enterprise depends on the will of the owner; during the visit to get the total number of microbusinesses it was found that many were closed, although it is not clear if the closing is definitive; however, a population of 328 microbusinesses was obtained. Not all microentrepreneurs could be interviewed, which is why a sample size was calculated using the formula of maximum variance (p=0.5 and q=0.5), with a level of trust equal to 95 % and a sampling error of 0.09. Assigning the values of p and q is done with the proportion of microbusinesses that continue functioning or not.

The formula results in a sample size of 70, but three more surveys were performed, which results in n=73. In México, the National Microbusiness Survey (Encuesta Nacional de Micronegocios, ENAMIN) is a basic instrument to analyze microenterprises (^{Fuentes et al., 2016}; ^{Mungaray et al., 2016}; ^{Rodríguez et al., 2015}). A questionnaire was built based on the ENAMIN and the theoretical approach. The data were obtained through a survey carried out in the months of January and February 2015 (Table 3). To analyze the data, the software Infostat and JMP were used.

The variable Apoy_rec is the sum of all the backing received at the moment of creating the business; this varies from 0 to 4. This represents the number of people who supported the entrepreneur at the beginning and the following were taken into account: “children, spouse, friends, relatives”. The types of help that entrepreneurs received ranged from giving the idea of creating the business to lending money and helping to launch it. The variable Cant_objet combines the objectives of microentrepreneurs which are the economic and non-economic objectives pointed out by ^{Kantis et al. (2002}). The following five objectives are considered: “Becoming your own boss, having or increasing income, having a good reputation, simply having an activity, and developing as a person” (Morales et al., 2015). Some other control variables were used to interpret the results, such as sex (sex) and schooling (escol).

Results and Discussion

Conclusions

There was an interest in understanding whether there are differences between microentrepreneurs in the process of creation of their microbusinesses. The discussion derived from this article allows confirming the heterogeneity of entrepreneurs at the time of creating their microbusinesses and the weight of this difference. It was found that there is a group that starts very well, combining all the factors of capitals and motivation while other begin badly, without motivation and without some capitals. The objectives and the financial capital are the most important elements to create microbusinesses, but when social capital is high, financial capital can lose importance.

These profiles can be used by the MFIs to support microentrepreneurs and avoid problems with clients. They can also be of use to understand why with the same microfinance instruments there are people who grow, while others do not. Future research can study which types of business are more sustainable and successful in the existing profiles. This will be useful to governments that are involved in supporting people to have a microenterprise through public policies, which will result in the efficiency of programs, since these profiles allow understanding which type of person to support.