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Entrepreneurship
and Entrepreneurs in Africa: What We Know and What We Need
to Do
- Moses N. Kiggundu
- Abstract
- This paper summarizes what we know about entrepreneurs
and entrepreneurship in Africa using three broad categories:
The entrepreneur, the entrepreneurial firm, and the external
environment. The entrepreneur’s attributes relevant
for success or failure include demographic variables, traits,
race and ethnicity, social status, and behavior. The concept
of entrepreneurial competencies is used to synthesize the
findings, and reconcile apparently contradictory findings.
The entrepreneurial firm’s relevant factors include
organization form, networks and clusters, capital resources,
and corporate governance. Structural weaknesses common to
African-owned firms are identified and discussed. The external
environment, made up of various macroeconomic and socio-cultural
variables, is considered necessary but not sufficient for
sustaining changes in entrepreneurial competencies and firm
performance. The paper concludes by discussing what we need
to do in terms of producing more useable knowledge, doing
better research, scaling up and mainstreaming entrepreneurship
in Africa.
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Psychological
Success Factors of Small Scale Businesses in Namibia: The
Roles of Strategy Process, Entrepreneurial Orientation and
the Environment
- Michael Frese, Anouk Brantjes, Rogier Hoorn
Abstract
It is hypothesized that psychological
strategy process characteristics, such as complete planning,
critical point planning, opportunistic, and reactive, as well
as entrepreneurial orientation (autonomy, innovativeness,
competitive aggressiveness, and risk taking) are related to
entrepreneurial success. In addition, the research examined
whether perceived environmental difficulties moderate this
relationship. A cross sectional interview based study on 87
small scale business owners in Namibia was used. Results show
that complete planning and a high entrepreneurial orientation
of the owners was positively and a reactive strategy was negatively
related to business success. Moreover, there were moderator
effects of perceived environmental difficulties on the relationship
between entrepreneurial orientation and success.
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Individual Perception of Business
Contexts:
The Case of Small-Scale Entrepreneurs in Tanzania
- Stein Kristiansen (Dr.oecon., Associate Professor)
Abstract
The article presents two case studies of small-scale business
innovators in Tanzania. The focus is on individual entrepreneurs’
conception of their contexts as enabling environments for
entrepreneurial endeavor. The objective is to identify regional
qualities of importance for business progress and success.
Based on some general entrepreneurship theory, the business
efforts of the two entrepreneurs are analyzed in accordance
with a simple model conceptualizing the entrepreneurs’
contexts. The ‘Value and needs context’ has an
influence on individual motivation and business objectives.
The ‘Opportunity context’ consists of available
natural resources, information, skills, capital, labor, infrastructure
and markets. The ‘Bureaucracy context’ limits
the scope of entrepreneurial striving and success. Administrative
maze and lack of trustworthiness are examples. It is underlined
that the geographical context for business innovators is not
objective, but should be understood from the individual entrepreneur’s
point of view. The article concludes that policies for encouraging
small-scale entrepreneurs should be based on an understanding
of their specific objectives and environments, from their
own point of view. Economic geography combined with social
anthropology
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The Moderator Effect of Cognitive
Ability on the Relation Between Planning Strategies and Business
Success of Small Scale Business Owners in South Africa: A
Longitudinal Study
Susanne Escher, Rafal Grabarkiewicz, Michael Frese,
Gwenda van Steekelenburg, Maartje Lauw, Christian Friedrich
- Abstract
This article argues that there is a moderator effect of cognitive
ability on the relationship between of planning with business
success. Two contradictory hypotheses were tested: either
people with a high degree of cognitive ability are able to
use planning more efficiently, and , therefore, profit more
from planning; or, there is a compensatory effect as people
with a low degree of cognitive ability profit more from planning
than owners with high cognitive ability. This was tested on
South African small-scale business owners who participated
in a cross-sectional (N=140) and longitudinal study (N=51).
A compensation effect was found, which means that business
owners with low cognitive ability could compensate their low
degree of cognitive ability with detailed planning. In such
a case, they could achieve the same success as owners with
a high degree of cognitive ability. For high cognitive ability
owners, it did not matter much whether they planned or not.
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Interviewer Cheating: Implications
for Research on Entrepreneurship in Africa
- David E. Harrison
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Abstract
Interviewer cheating has seldom been studied or discussed
as a problem in the literature. This article therefore begins
with a brief review of this problem area which is of utmost
importance especially for entrepreneurship research in a Third
World context. In the Third World, the allocation of financial
support is often based on interview surveys. After describing
two cases of extensive faking by carefully selected and comprehensively
trained interviewers, possible explanations of such behaviour
are hypothesized. The paper concludes with the warning that
interviewer cheating may be more prevalent than is generally
assumed. It is recommended that careful interviewer selection,
preventive study design, and meticulous subsequent interview
inspection should be used whenever possible
Constraints of Growth Oriented Enterprises
in the Southern and Eastern African Region
Per Trulsson
- Abstract
In its efforts to promote the creation of quality jobs within
the small- and medium-scale enterprise sector, the Regional
Project Office for the International Labor Organization’s
Start and Improve Your Business Department of Harare has undertaken
two studies aiming to find out what growth oriented enterprises
look like and how the ILO can assist them in their aspirations
to grow. This article presents the key findings from the latter
of these two studies. It identifies constraints of growth
oriented enterprises and what they subsequently need to succeed
in their aspirations to grow. Constraints to enterprise growth
and subsequent needs to overcome them are identified in the
following areas: access to finance, financial management,
market orientation and competition, human resources, enterprise
environment, physical infrastructure, policies and regulations,
and information and networks.
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