Revitalising serial entrepreneurship in sub-Saharan Africa: insights from a newly emerging economy

ABSTRACT

In light of the growing national priority to develop and revitalise entrepreneurship in emerging economies, our understanding of barriers to serial entrepreneurship (SE) in such a context warrants further scholarly attention. Using insights from Ghana, an integrated framework of endogenous and exogenous barriers to SE is advanced. The study identified factors such as stigmatisation of business failure, fear of failure, successive governments’ suspicion of the private sector and lack of a clear national policy as barriers to the development of SE. By creating conditions for de-stigmatising of failure, countries would be able to create conditions for more serial entrepreneurs to emerge and flourish. The analysis also indicates that reinvigorating entrepreneurship by providing space and opportunity for failed entrepreneurs to re-emerge would enable such countries to enhance entrepreneurial activities and improve economic development. The implications for technology analysis and strategic entrepreneurship literature are identified and examined.

KEYWORDS:

• Entrepreneurship process
• innovation
• failure
• serial entrepreneurship

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Dr Joseph Amankwah-Amoah is an Associate Professor (Reader) of international business at Kent Business School, University of Kent. His research interests include strategic renewal, global business strategy, business failure and lateral hiring in emerging economies. He has published in many journals of international repute including Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Industrial and Corporate Change, International Journal of Human Resource Management, Business History, Group and Organization Management, Industrial Management and Data System, Thunderbird International Business Review and Journal of Business Research.