Bounded emotionality in entrepreneurial calculations: a case study in rural Sri Lanka

Following the emergent trend to deconstruct the conventional view of Schumpeterian entrepreneurship, this paper specifically addresses the questions of how psychological meanings and moral factors affect rural microentrepreneurship in developing countries and how the calculative practices of such rural entrepreneurs are embedded within their culture and politics. Our Sri Lankan case study employs a critical ethnographic approach, with the evidence displaying the presence of 'bounded emotionality' in entrepreneurial calculations as determined and influenced by society and structures of morality and meaning. The paper emphasises the need to adopt broader critical frameworks, of a multidisciplinary form, to understand rural entrepreneurship in developing countries as they particularly address situational realities at local levels. This can assist policymakers in constructing and adopting more appropriate microentrepreneurship development programmes to better fit individual contexts.