“Overcoming Business Challenges in Bangladesh: Summary Findings of the Overcoming Business Challenges Survey.” With Ahmed S. Ishtiaque and Mehdi Rageb. University of Liberal Arts Bangladesh. 2015.

On the one hand, establishing and growing a business in Bangladesh confronts numerous challenges, and in fact, countless studies provide a virtual laundry list of potential obstacles to enterprise development. On the other hand, since Bangladesh transitioned to democracy in 1991, the country has averaged exceptionally high growth rates. Clearly, major challenges exist, but it also seems that many entrepreneurs are successfully overcoming these obstacles. While past business surveys, such as the World Bank’s Enterprise Survey, have done a very good job at documenting the obstacles that entrepreneurs face, we wanted to go a step further: to understand the strategies that entrepreneurs were using to overcome these challenges and to explore which strategies correspond with better outcomes. The result was the Overcoming Business Challenges Survey (OBCS). The OBCS is a survey of 536 CEOs and Managing Directors from small, medium, and large firms across three very desperate industries, real estate development, information technology (IT), and furniture manufacturing. The study, a joint project of the Center for Enterprise and Society at the University of Liberal Arts and Sirius Marketing and Social Research Ltd. was conducted in early 2013.Through the survey, we explore entrepreneurial responses to four types of challenges: (1) obtaining financing, (2) developing reliable forward and backward linkages, (3) obtaining government permissions and services, and (4) hiring and developing effective human resources. Provided these obstacles, we focus on three broad categories of strategies that entrepreneurs might take to overcome them. These include strengthening the business as an institution, using personal and professional networks, or simply working harder and relying more on one’s entrepreneurial skills.

“Overcoming Red Tape in Bangladesh: Bribery, Government Contacts and Personal Ties.” In Khurshed Alam ed. Bangladesh: Economic, Political and Social Issues. New York: Nova Science Publishers. 2018.

“Governing Growth: Understanding Problems of Real Estate Development in Dhaka, Bangladesh.” With Afsana Tazreen. Journal of South Asian Development. Vol. 10: 1-21. 2015

“Entrepreneurial Satisfaction with Human Resource Performance: What Really Matters to Entrepreneurs?” With Mehdi Rageb. Journal of Knowledge Globalization. Vol. 9(1): 41-59. 2017.