Special Issue: Entrepreneurship and Africa’s cultural context

ABSTRACT

The subject of entrepreneurship has generated swathes of interest from a variety of stakeholders seeking to address economic challenges in Africa. At the heart of this interest is the fact that the businesses created by entrepreneurs create employment opportunities which, in turn, have the potential to reduce poverty at all levels of African society. Yet, while research into entrepreneurial activity is well established in the developed countries of the western world, there remain large gaps in knowledge about key issues such as why entrepreneurs in Africa start businesses, how these businesses are sustained, and the specific contextual influences and challenges which affect African entrepreneurs’ decision-making and behavior. In this introductory paper, we highlight the importance of attempting to understand how African entrepreneurs, working outside the strictures of strong formal institutions, navigate difficult challenges and make decisions using fragments of informal traditions originating from prevalent African philosophies such as Ubuntu. We also draw attention to the need to assess the notion of entrepreneurial business success or failure in Africa from a cultural context perspective which takes into account considerations aside from the solely rational-economic. We conclude with a series of questions which remain largely unanswered but will, we trust, be addressed in future research on entrepreneurship and Africa’s cultural context.

KEYWORDS:

• Africa
• entrepreneurship
• Ubuntu
• socio-cultural context

Introduction

There is a well-established body of research which explores themes associated with entrepreneurship and small business enterprises in Africa (Kiggundu, 2002; Kyalo & Kiganane, 2014; Mitchell, 2004; Rivera-Santos et al., 2015; V Gough & & Langevang, 2017). These themes include the influence of policymakers (Atiase et al., 2017), development agencies (Elkan, 1988; Marsden, 1990; Richardson et al., 2004) and investors (Agabo & Akor, 2021). Further, research findings on the motives of African entrepreneurs (Mitchell, 2004), the challenges facing African entrepreneurs (McDade & Spring, 2005), the cultural and institutional contexts impinging on African entrepreneurs (Agu & Nwachukwu, 2020; Ault & Spicer, 2020; Urban, 2007; Vershinina et al., 2018), the contribution of African entrepreneurs to innovation, job creation and poverty reduction (Abisuga-Oyekunle et al., 2020; Robson et al., 2009), and social entrepreneurship in Africa (Rivera-Santos et al., 2015) serve to validate entrepreneurship in Africa as both a distinctive and valuable area of research. In addition, studies of this nature have underscored the need to develop our understanding of what influences African entrepreneurs’ decisions and practices within complex and ever-changing entrepreneurial ecosystems. The bulk of this body of research, however, tends to shy away from delving deeply into how context influences African entrepreneurs’ critical decisions and behaviors. For example, although cultural factors have been acknowledged as enablers and constrainers of Africa’s entrepreneurship (Agu & Nwachukwu, 2020; Urban, 2007), there is inadequate articulation of what African culture means and which cultural dimensions are relatively significant in influencing entrepreneurs’ critical decisions and behaviors.

Extant research has identified the importance of entrepreneurs to alleviating Africa’s economic and social challenges (Igwe & Icha-Ituma, 2020). This acknowledgement raises key questions about how entrepreneurs embark on their entrepreneurial journey, the critical decisions they make during that journey, and how specific cultural factors influence their decisions and subsequent behavior. Notably, the issue of how specific cultural orientations influence managerial and entrepreneurial behavior has been underscored by researchers in other fields (George & Zahra, 2002). In the absence of predictable business and institutional environments, entrepreneurs cannot rely on “rational” decision-making paradigms alone (Koechlin, 2020; Simon, 1979). That is, in such circumstances the behaviors of entrepreneurs should not be attributed solely to economic rationalism (Akerlof & Yellen, 1987).

As African entrepreneurs tend to operate under uncertain conditions, it behooves us to seek to understand further the extent to which other factors, beyond commonly cited psychological and economic considerations, play significant roles in entrepreneurs’ decision-making and behaviors. For example, there is a need to understand how African entrepreneurs, working outside the strictures of strong formal institutions, navigate difficult challenges and make decisions using fragments of informal traditions originating from Ubuntu philosophy. This understanding is particularly important because the generic and generalizing templates on which current African research on entrepreneurship is based often assumes the existence of economically driven rationalist “lone wolves” that set off to pursue materialistic and individualistic economic goals and interests (Carsrud & Brännback, 2011). Such assumptions fail to accommodate the reality of the context in which African entrepreneurs operate amid both modernity and tradition (Zoogah et al., 2015). Writing on the challenges of entrepreneurship in African contexts, where communalism has traditionally been prevalent in the form of Ubuntu and Harambee, Sriram et al. (2020, pp. 10–11) state the following:

African entrepreneurs are burdened by a social obligation to offer jobs and redistribute their income to relatives. As a result, their ventures are less productive than those of their foreign competitors … The burden of communalism is that many entrepreneurial ventures have a very precarious existence because they are not market and profit oriented.

In effect, the actual extent to which fragments of Ubuntu-related philosophy influence critical decisions of African entrepreneurs seems to have largely escaped scholarly attention despite the calls for research into this topic, which have been made in special editions previously published in the Africa Journal of Management (Littlewood et al., 2022). Perhaps this lack of attention is partly attributable to the templates and methods used to investigate the topic of entrepreneurship, as well as the focus placed on entrepreneurs who are attempting to function within the context of the so-called modernity. Given that many African entrepreneurs do not operate within that context, or at least do not operate with the mind-set of modernity, the field appears to neglect a great opportunity to understand the context specificity of African entrepreneurship.

Delving More Deeply into the Cultural Context of African Entrepreneurship

Research on African entrepreneurship and business enterprise has led to theorizations and conceptualizations of the African entrepreneur and the African business context (Dana, 2015; Kiggundu, 2002). Understandably, much of the research and theorization has adopted templates used to investigate entrepreneurs and business contexts in other parts of the world (El Ebrashi, 2018; Isaga, 2018; Van Klyton & Rutabayiro-Ngoga, 2018). The corollary is that individual variables that have become associated with the behavior of entrepreneurs in other parts of the world are then applied to African entrepreneurs (Kiggundu, 2002). Thus, the reasons why African entrepreneurs set up their businesses are almost invariably investigated through theoretical lenses used to investigate the same issue around the world (Eijdenberg & Masurel, 2013; Fatoki, 2014; Mitchell, 2004; Nyame-Asiamah et al., 2020). Similarly, the generic templates of context (economic, institutional, and cultural) which are applied to the business environments of entrepreneurs in other parts of the world are also employed to shed light on entrepreneurship in Africa (Atiase et al., 2017; Vershinina et al., 2018). Undoubtedly, these lines of investigations have advanced our knowledge of the field especially in cases where the main purpose of the research is to discover how African entrepreneurs mimic entrepreneurs from other parts of the world or to investigate, for comparative reasons, the extent to which the African entrepreneurs are moving away from their traditions when making economic decisions. For example, the investigation of the psychological characteristics of the African entrepreneur has validated certain constructs (Frese, 2000; Krauss et al., 2005). If, however, the main purpose of the research is to explore whether the African entrepreneur is influenced by a certain value system, operating with a distinctive mind-set, and pursuing unconventional goals, then the use of generic templates, often developed in non-African contexts, has its limitations when seeking to delve deeper into African contexts (George, 2015; Raimi, 2015). On this theme, Swartz et al. (2019, p. 15) in their study on entrepreneurship in South Africa argue that: “ … the extant entrepreneurship literature in leading journals fails to include contextual factors when discussing influences on nascent entrepreneurship in South Africa. South Africa is not unique in this respect”. We highlight that the authors of the papers in this special issue of the Africa Journal of Management were actively encouraged to move beyond the application of generic templates in order to shed light on how aspects of Africa’s value systems and mind-sets influence entrepreneurs’ decisions and behavior within their local contexts.

It is recognized here that the use of the generic templates and methods which are prevalent in studies of African entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship, has provided a range of insights into some of the challenges faced by and opportunities availed to African entrepreneurs. As such, existent literature offers valuable knowledge and information to policymakers and development agencies seeking to create policy interventions to assist entrepreneurs and businesses pursuing modernity. However, research into the pursuit of modernity, which disregards, for example, questions surrounding how Ubuntu traditional values constrain or influence critical decision-making amongst Africa’s entrepreneurs is likely to provide, at best, a limited perspective of entrepreneurship on the African continent (Vershinina et al., 2018). Admittedly, the globalization of neoliberal economic and educational systems that African countries have embraced has led to the somewhat narrow focus of entrepreneurship research focused on African contexts (Bloom, 2004). Notably, even some of those are actively engaged in social entrepreneurship research view it from a neoliberal economic lens (Boschee & McClurg, 2003; Dey & Steyaert, 2018). Thus, while a social entrepreneurship goal might be unique, the process is unlikely to differ radically from the economic rationalism, which dominates mainstream literature on entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship (Dey & Steyaert, 2018). This partly explains the adoption of generic and generalizing templates to investigate social entrepreneurship on the continent of Africa. Such an approach may well hinder the adequate discovery of how remnants of African values influence social entrepreneurship.

Therefore, in spite of the abundance of knowledge generated by researchers so far, there is more to be learnt about African entrepreneurs and the contexts in which they are operating. One of the related issues that, to date, has remained under-researched is the nature of entrepreneurs’ motives for starting a business in the first place. As has been pointed out, the theory of pull (opportunity) and push (necessity) is too ambiguous and simplistic (Dawson & Henley, 2012) to understand fully African entrepreneurs’ motives, decisions, and behaviors. Pull and Push theory is based on economic rationalism that assumes people set up their businesses to pursue individualistic monetary and materialistic gains. This assumption is not entirely correct for entrepreneurs operating in a setting characterized by traditional norms (Bainton, 2008; Dana, 2015; Finney, 1987). Given the globalization of economic liberalism and the growing economic and social challenges on the African continent, understandably, the theory continues to dominate investigations of entrepreneurship in this setting. However, even if opportunity or necessity can explain why African entrepreneurs set up businesses in the first place, given the socio-cultural context of Africa, can we rely on Pull and Push motives to understand and explain how entrepreneurs run their businesses? In addition, given that the voices of the African entrepreneurs remain relatively weak as far as their latent and/or emerging motives are concerned, should we continue to rely on pull and push theory as the most appropriate lens to understand African entrepreneurs and their behaviors? In other words, can African value systems such as Ubuntu, provide another lens to interrogate entrepreneurs’ motives, decisions, and behaviors in the African context? Indeed, the application of Ubuntu has been advocated widely as a means to address Africa’s social and economic challenges (Mwipikeni, 2018) and, further, its application to managing businesses has been investigated in Africa (Visser, 2004). Yet, Ubuntu philosophy remains relatively under-utilized as a means to investigate, analyze, and understand entrepreneurs’ motives, decisions, and behaviors in Africa. Perhaps, this is partly because some believe that indigenous philosophies such as Ubuntu no longer exist in the modern era or that such philosophies are incompatible with modern economics (Dana, 2015). Some may even argue that Ubuntu or any African value system represents myths, which run counter to the preferred perspective of economic rationalism. Even so, we argue that logic and rationalism are not themselves culture-free (Mamman et al., 2023). Thus, while it would be reasonable to argue that a coherent African philosophy or cultural value system does not exist as an influence on the daily decision-making and behaviors of Africans, it is also reasonable to argue that, in the era of globalization, no member of any society is influenced solely by one coherent philosophy or cultural value system. Research has consistently demonstrated that decision-making and behavior across countries tends to vary, creating distinct clusters representing “cultural groups” and unique business systems (Bruff, 2008; Hodgson, 1996; Triandis, 2004). Therefore, to dismiss, as a myth, the existence of African values, no matter how fragile, is to advance the unlikely theory that contemporary Africans are a group of people who are not currently influenced by historical indigenous values and cultural traditions. Thus, the logical extrapolation of this myth thesis is that, in the 21^st century, culture and traditions do not significantly influence decision-making and behaviors of Africans or of any society.

Research has found that, in the daily behaviors of Africans, elements of Ubuntu persist. For example, generosity, compassion, the notion of the extended family and “entitlement mentality” are evident among Africans irrespective of their education or whether they live in the city or rural areas (Lutz, 2009; Nussbaum, 2003; Onukwuba, 2020; Sibanda, 2014). The existence of such virtues in other non-African societies does not make African virtues non-African (Metz, 2007). Instead, the virtues explain some of the characteristics of Africans and how these virtues can influence their decisions and behaviors in social and economic interactions. Of course, the degree of influence is likely to vary significantly across countries, settings, sectors, and levels of education. Therefore, Africa provides a fertile ground for investigating how the socio-cultural context influences entrepreneurs’ motives, decisions, and behaviors. It is worth pointing out that Africa’s socio-cultural contexts do not necessarily cause or determine specific decisions and behaviors but rather influence the processes leading to decisions and behaviors. To that extent, it is important to investigate such influences.

An important issue related to gaps in literature is that many policy interventions for entrepreneurship development fail to live up to expectations or deliver intended outcomes for various reasons (Mamman et al., 2019). However, we argue that to seek reasons for this failure from rational economics is unlikely to be fruitful owing to the influence of the socio-cultural context alluded to earlier. A broader explanation of policy failure might be due to the lack of a deeper understanding of the complexity and transitory nature of African entrepreneurs’ motives and how these motives influence behavior within a cultural context (Smith-Hunter & Boyd, 2004). Hence, exploring the notion of business success or failure in Africa from a cultural context perspective may require insights gained from cases where entrepreneurs have not behaved in accordance with liberal economic philosophy. To emphasize, further understanding of context is highly relevant and necessary to extending theoretical paradigms as well as ensuring the relevance of knowledge and theories to Africa. Yet understanding context requires critical theoretical conceptualization and in-depth empirical investigation of the subject matter. As George (2015, p. 5) argues:

As an applied field, the emphasis on theory with disregard to the context of management practice presents a challenge for progress both as a scholarly domain and for credibility in what we teach and how we consult, or how we effect positive social change.

Having emphasized the centrality of context to the subject of entrepreneurship and small business enterprise in Africa, we highlight the contributions made by the papers comprising this special edition of the Africa Journal of Management. This collection of papers is intended to shed light on how Africa’s cultural context influences or has the potential to influence entrepreneurs’ decisions and behaviors before and after setting up their businesses. In addressing this overriding goal, the papers, in various ways, identify specific cultural issues and dimensions that may have been underplayed in many earlier investigations, perhaps because of the adoption of generic theoretical templates in the designs of the studies. For example, the generic and prevalent theoretical assumption that African entrepreneurs set up their businesses to pursue rational economic goals is likely to negate the importance of key culture-specific issues that require critical examination. Thus, several of the papers in this special issue highlight key decisions and practices of entrepreneurs which, when evaluated, challenge some of the assumptions of generic and generalizing templates currently used to understand entrepreneurs’ decisions and behaviors in African context. Taken as a body of work, the papers shed light on how and to what extent, African philosophies, principles of behavior, social interactions, perceptions of the other, value systems and mind-sets, manifest themselves in entrepreneurs’ decisions and practices.

Special Issue Papers

The papers in this special issue engage with a range of topics and areas concerning entrepreneurship in Africa. The common thread that binds the papers together is the theme of how elements of African value systems such as Ubuntu can help us to understand and explain entrepreneurial practices. In their paper on how entrepreneurs succeed in challenging economic environment, Rees et al. highlight how global incidences can dramatically affect small businesses in Africa and how entrepreneurs navigate through the reality of economic challenges while at the same time adhering to some of the principles of Ubuntu. The authors argue that, despite the economic motivation to set up and run a business in a challenging business environment, entrepreneurs that are motivated by Ubuntu values are more likely to manifest altruism in their entrepreneurial practices. Applying the same theme of Ubuntu, Adeola presents a conceptual paper that advocates the use of principles of Ubuntu to enable sustainable digital entrepreneurship in Africa. Adeola argues that spirituality, collective welfare, humanity, reciprocity, and benevolence, when integrated with digital entrepreneurship, can lead to collaboration, a human-centric approach, adaptive resilience, social responsibility, and community building. The paper identifies a role for Ubuntu principles within the architecture of a digital entrepreneurial ecosystem for sustainability. Staying within the theme of Ubuntu, Hossain et al.’s paper traces an entrepreneur’s journey. They explain this journey, with reference to Ubuntu, in an attempt to contextualize the study of entrepreneurship in Africa. The paper demonstrates how Ubuntu principles can influence the extent to which an African entrepreneur follows economic rationalism in making critical decision or pursues a course that is at odds with mainstream thought on economic rationalism. The paper argues that to understand entrepreneurship in an African context, it is beneficial to interrogate the intersection between economic rationalism and socio-cultural contexts within which the African entrepreneurs are making decisions. Most importantly, the paper sheds light on the possibilities that the motives of entrepreneurs cannot always be relied upon to explain their decisions and behaviors.

Traoré et al.’s paper focuses on an industry that has traditionally received scant attention within business and management literature. This paper is a major contribution to our understanding of entrepreneurship on the continent. Although the paper relies on the mainstream literature to interrogate entrepreneurship in the Artisanal mining informal sector, the review of literature integrates knowledge from two disciplines to reimagine entrepreneurship in the mining sector. The qualitative data highlight that, even when entrepreneurs are pushed or pulled to start a business, their decision-making should be considered with reference to their socio-cultural and socio-economic context. For example, social capital plays an important role that can lead to setting up a business. Similarly, socio-cultural factors influence where and how entrepreneurs use the income generated from running the business. Okecha et al.’s paper is an analysis of the relationship between leadership and Ubuntu philosophy in the business sector. The paper is focused on servant leadership literature and seeks to address a gap in the African leadership literature relating to indigenous philosophies like Ubuntu in business practices and employee relations. The paper is based on a diverse range of small and medium size enterprises (SMEs) from the Nigerian private sector. The authors report that some elements of Ubuntu value system can indeed be identified in African leadership behavior and, further, that this behavior incorporates some of the characteristics of servant leadership found in many other countries. The authors conclude that the study of servant leadership sheds light on the African concept of Ubuntu when viewed from philosophical, religious, mythical and mystical perspectives as well as from cultural, managerial and organizational perspectives. The findings of this study enable us to appreciate leadership from an African perspective especially when indigenous philosophies and cultural values are used as a lens to understand leading and managing enterprises. Dartey et al.’s paper investigates the complex relationship among family values, debt finance, and business growth in emerging economies. Using Schwartz's theory of human values, the paper deploys indigenous ontologies to investigate the relationships between family values, debt financing, and firm growth. The authors’ main conclusion is that self-enhancement, conservation, and self-transcendence values positively moderate the relationship between debt financing and family business growth.

Summary and Directions for Future Research

The main aim of this special issue is to stimulate the conceptual and empirical development of research, which seeks to identify and explain entrepreneurial mind-sets, practices, and trajectories that may be attributed to African value systems such as Ubuntu, but which are positioned outside of neoliberal and individualistic economic paradigms. The papers advance our understanding of the extent to which the rich diversity of entrepreneurs’ motives, intentions, decisions, and practices are influenced by African value systems and principles. In line with the Africa Journal of Management’s aim of discovering and advancing African indigenous knowledge and wisdom within the context of current realities, the papers cover a range of topics on entrepreneurship. We trust that the contributions provided by these papers will help to open possibilities and opportunities for future investigations pertaining to Africa’s cultural context and entrepreneurship.

The emergent findings from these special issue papers inevitably identify a range of issues and questions, which currently remain largely unanswered. What could or should be the purpose of a business in a region bedeviled by social and economic challenges and where formal institutions are either weak or absent? What elements of African value systems hold promise for developing Afrocentric business models? How and/or to what extent do African entrepreneurs appropriate and use African value systems when making business decisions? How do African entrepreneurs use African value systems to mitigate the challenges of an uncertain and constantly changing business environment? How do African entrepreneurs use African value systems in their entrepreneurship processes? To what extent do the remnants of African value systems enable or constrain entrepreneurship and how do entrepreneurs deal with these systems? To what extent do African policymakers recognize and integrate African value system in their policies for business enterprise development? How can African value systems be integrated into policy formulation for business enterprise development? What role can African value systems play in understanding the link and interaction between African entrepreneurs and their ecosystems? It is encouraging to highlight that some studies, including the papers presented in this special issue, have already attempted to address numerous issues relating to these types of questions. We trust that this special issue will provide an impetus to researchers to engage in research designed to develop further our knowledge and understanding of these vital issues associated with entrepreneurship and Africa’s cultural context.

Additional information

Funding

This paper has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under [grant agreement No 823744].

Notes on contributors

A. Mamman

Aminu Mamman (PhD) is a Professor of Management and International Development at the University of Manchester, Global Development Institute, United Kingdom. His current research interests focus on human capital, business practices and, policy implementation in developing and emerging economies. Other research interest includes the transfer of management theories and innovations and practices across contexts. Professor Mamman is one of the principal investigators of European Union’s H2020-MSCA-RISE research project no. 823744.

M. Branine

Mohamed Branine (PhD) is Professor of International Human Resource Management and Dean of School of Business, Law and Social Sciences at Abertay University, Dundee, UK. He is Academic Fellow of the Charted Institute of Personnel and Development (AFCIPD) and Senior Fellow of Higher Education Academy (SFHEA). His research interests include the practical challenges of managing across cultures, leadership and culture, and employee response to change in times of crisis. He is also one of the principal investigators of European Union’s H2020-MSCA-RISE research project no. 823744.

J. Bawole

Justice Bawole (PhD) is Professor of Public Administration and Management at the Department of Public Administration at the University of Ghana Business School (UGBS), Legon. He has been the Dean of the UGBS, the premier and largest Business School in Ghana for the past five years. He obtained a PhD in Development Policy and Management from the Global Development Institute, University of Manchester, UK and an MPhil in Public Administration from the University of Ghana. He has over 80 academic publications of peer-review journals articles, edited books and book chapters. Prof Bawole has led high-level consulting assignments for both national and international organisations.

C. J. Rees

Christopher J. Rees (PhD) is a Reader in Human Resources and Organisational Change at the Global Development Institute, University of Manchester, UK, and Adjunct Professor at the Faculty of Social Sciences & Humanities, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia. He is a Chartered Psychologist and Chartered Fellow of the Chartered Institute for Personnel and Development. He is an editor of the European Management Review. His publications and research interests are primarily focused on HRM, organisational change, and employee behavior as theorized and practiced in a variety of international settings. He is also one of the principal investigators of European Union’s H2020-MSCA-RISE research project no. 823744.