Entrepreneurial Workaround Practices in Severe Institutional Voids: Evidence From Kenya

Entrepreneurs in developing economies try to cope with weak or absent formal institutions—often referred to as “institutional voids”—by relying extensively on intermediary organizations such as business incubators and development organizations or informal institutions such as political, kinship, or family relationships. However, in many African countries, intermediary support is limited and informal institutions are also unreliable, adding risks and costs to doing business and increasing the severity of institutional voids in the surrounding ecosystem. We investigate the practices followed by 47 commercial entrepreneurs in Kenya to “work around” these severe institutional voids to achieve their goals of business creation and growth. We find that severe institutional voids stimulate the hybridization of goals to include social value creation, create a need for a more strategic orchestration of business relationships, and motivate entrepreneurs to proactively cross-brace the institutional infrastructure around them. We contribute by unveiling the important role of entrepreneurs as microinstitutional agents in developing economies and by detailing how commercial and social goals become intertwined in the context of African entrepreneurship.

The Barriers to High-Growth Enterprises: What Do Businesses in Africa Experience?

This study examines the challenges that micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) face and provide insights on African business environment and entrepreneurial ecosystem. In the context of growth-oriented entrepreneurship, good policies and favourable institutional environments support firms' growth, productivity and development, while adverse formal and informal institutions constrain business development. Secondary data from World Bank Enterprise Survey (WBES) was used to capture barriers to entrepreneurship and high-growth opportunities which include – lack of finance, lack of innovation and technology, low skilled workforce, poor infrastructure, unfavorable regulations and more pervasively corruption. These barriers are evident in the micro, meso and macro environments. These have implications on the unemployment rate, poverty rates and economic growth of the African region. Keywords: Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises; Entrepreneurial Ecosystem; African Entrepreneurship; African Business Environments.

Navigating ethnic entrepreneurship in religion and culture meld

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine ethnic entrepreneurship within the contexts of religion, cultural hybridity, segregation, diasporic network and enterprise. Design/methodology/approach The study collected two sets of data from 15 black African respondents/entrepreneurs through face-to-face interviews in London, UK. Findings Findings point to immigrants’ entrepreneurial adaptation through traditional and dogmatic interpretations of religious beliefs in the informal sector. Originality/value The paper offers fresh insights into the religion/faith and socio-cultural meld in the sagacity of black African entrepreneurship. Such insights afford great opportunities to construct new sites of meaning or frame new explanations of entrepreneurship among the ethnic group – using religion and culture as important environmental munificence.