Microbusinesses that employ few, if any, staff including sole traders represent a substantial proportion of all national economies and are important sources of innovation. In the European economy these businesses make up 93% of all private enterprises. Despite their economic significance, economic development at all geographical levels - supranational, national, regional and local - has neglected microbusinesses (those with up to nine employees). Further striking and largely overlooked in current economic development policies is the fact that most private enterprises in mature economies are based in the owner's home ('home-based businesses'). Private homes are a major business incubator as most start-ups are assumed to be based in peoples' homes. This was the case well before COVID-19 which has led to a search in working from home.
While the home was a place of paid work in pre-industrial times, industrialisation together with modern urban planning led to the separation of home and work. Fundamental technological, social and economic changes had 'revived' homeworking before the COVID-19 pandemic. However, what is new is that these homeworkers also work for themselves and not for a company.
The ERC WORKANDHOME project challenges some traditional business policy and research thinking about business location and residential location. The overall objective is to explore business activity that takes place partly or entirely in the owner's home and how this activity is connected to economic growth, individual well-being, neighbourhoods, housing and the digital economy. Specifically it asks how the home and home life are reshaped by business activities, how residential location choices and firm location choices are interrelated, in which neighbourhood types home-based businesses are located and what are the drivers of home-based businesses.
Because much home-based economic activity is not captured by existing data sources (for example only registered businesses or businesses with at least one employee are captured in administrative business data), the project explores innovative methods to identify home-based activity including 'big' social media data.
The home-based business sector is diverse and different needs exist linked with the industry businesses trade in, social characteristics of the owners and geographical location. To some extent, the problems faced by home-based businesses are similar to the micro-enterprise sector as a whole. However, because of the home location there are specific policy needs which the ERC WORKANDHOME project seeks to identify and bring into policy.
