Anointed Electrical Engineering Services Limited

There is lack of data on entrepreneurial successes in Africa. While there have been numerous research studies on entrepreneurship and family businesses in many regions of the world, there has been relatively little research done in the African context. This lack of research on entrepreneurial success in Africa is due to a variety of reasons such as the fact that most are relatively young and journals are typically housed in universities in developed economies. This chapter describes the success story of a family business in Africa. Specifically, this study sets out to determine the context of starting a family business in Africa: the motivation, type of business, family involvement and the mental attributes, and the challenges in starting and running a family business. Finally, this study recounts some of the lessons from the challenges and successes of the entrepreneur.

Global Lighting Centre Ltd.

The purpose of this case study is to examine the motivation and challenges influencing entrepreneurial startup of family businesses from Africa, specifically Ghana. The case brings out how the founder of a family business has been able to manage these challenges and incorporate non-family members for business success. The case further explores the differences and similarities in the motivational factors and challenges associated with starting a business in an African context, specifically Ghanaian context, as compared to the other parts of the world. A questionnaire and in-depth interview was used to gather data. The findings suggest that though there are several personal and environmental challenges faced when starting a family business in Ghana, entrepreneurs with strong mental and personality qualities or characteristics are able to make it.

Gender, Entrepreneurship, and Informal Markets in Africa

Mainstream scholarship on entrepreneurship focuses on firms in the global north as the dominant paradigm, neglecting potential lessons to be found in the informal sector, in the global south, particularly in Africa, and among women. Local entrepreneurship practices present a valuable case study for understanding the nature of entrepreneurship in emerging economies and their contribution to social and economic development. Drawing on ethnographic data, this chapter examines gender and information and communication technology use in the Ghanaian marketplace. Market women's entrepreneurship is influenced by social capital derived from social networks drawn from strong community ties. The study found that ICTs such as mobile phone, while gendered, are central to organizing and managing these micro-enterprises. This chapter contributes to studies on entrepreneurship by drawing attention to the under-researched intersections of female entrepreneurship in the Ghanaian marketplace and ICTs in emerging economies.

Factors Stimulating Entrepreneurship

The World Bank, the World Economic Forum, the Heritage Foundation, and other global organizations have studied national business climates to determine optimal conditions and practices necessary to stimulate entrepreneurship and economic growth. This chapter compares select measures from the three organizations from six West African countries (Benin, Cote d'Ivorie, Ghana, Liberia, Senegal, and Sierra Leone) and benchmarks their results against the United States and an unweighted average of six European Union member states. These measures are most directly tied to the establishment, protection and sustainable growth of technology or technology-dependent entrepreneurial businesses: business freedom, investment freedom, investor protection, property rights protection, technological readiness, innovation, freedom from corruption, and access to risk capital. This chapter contributes to the literature in three ways. First, it provides a broad policy comparison. Second, it benchmarks entrepreneurial readiness climates via comparisons among emerging and developed markets. Lastly, it offers recommendations for policy makers and researchers.

Mentalpreneurial Differences and Similarities

This chapter identifies several challenges and positive trends that family businesses in Africa face. The challenges include relative lack of capital, lack of business freedom, and the high levels of corruption. Positive trends identified include infrastructural projects associated with the Chinese investments in Africa, the role of technology as a catalyst in helping social capital build-up of women entrepreneurs, and the strong correlation of good governance factors with indicators of ease of doing business. This chapter also identifies several similarities and the few differences that American and Ghanaian entrepreneurs face. Implications for research and lessons for prospective entrepreneurs are provided.

Case Study

An emerging research area—transgenerational entrepreneurship—aims to understand the role of one type of informal organization—the family—in entrepreneurial value creation process. This case study on Glastender illustrates how its founder, Jon D. Hall, and his kin have engaged in the practice of transgenerational entrepreneurship involving three key steps: first, the founder establishes a business unit that represents his historical expertise, vision, innovation, strategy, structure, tradition, and entrepreneurial mindset; second, he enmeshes this unit with that of his family and creates a controlling family unit that comprises of family history, ownership structure, kinship ties, shared intuitive leadership, shared practical knowledge, and shared entrepreneurial culture; third, using this “familiness” factor, he mentors and shepherds the second generation family entrepreneurs to be proactive, innovative, and risk taking, thereby leading to enhanced entrepreneurial performance, and in turn creating value across generations.

Kama Group Limited

Family businesses and entrepreneurship research has grown but with few studies in Africa. This case study fills that gap in the research on entrepreneurship and family business cases in the African continent. The case is explored to assess the motivation and challenges influencing entrepreneurial startup businesses and founders of family businesses. Using both qualitative and quantitative methods for data collection, the research confirms some differences and similarities in the motivational factors and challenges associated with starting a business in an African context, specifically Ghanaian. This entrepreneur's family business encountered a number of challenges in its startup. However, due to strong mental attributes such as personal motivation, persistence, commitment, and hard work, he has overcome these challenges and grown the business successfully. Although environmental challenges may be greater in an emerging economy such as Ghana, personal attributes can play a key role in building and sustaining a successful family business.

Entrepreneurship Factor in Institutional Development

In 2000, The Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration (GIMPA) was a government subvented institution on the verge of collapse and threatened by privatization. In less than a decade, GIMPA has achieved over a 2000% increase in turnover and become the second university in Africa to meet the conditions for membership in the Association of African Business Schools. Now ranked among the top business schools in Sub-Saharan Africa, it is the only public university in Ghana that is self-financed. It has built the largest business school faculty in the country and become the first institution in Ghana to run degree top-up programmes for HND holders. What made GIMPA so unique, especially in this area of institutional development? This chapter tries to unearth the success story from a researcher's point of view and unveil the importance of entrepreneurship in institutional transformation.

Holy Trinity Medical Centre

Entrepreneurs in Africa play a critical role in employment and wealth creation. Many African businesses started as family businesses or Small to Medium-Sized Enterprises (SME). Their output forms a significant portion of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of those economies. The goal of this chapter is to contribute the case study of a successful African entrepreneur from Ghana. This study also presents the context of setting up a business in Africa, especially Ghana. The motivation, success factors, and challenges, such as lack of access to capital, limited government support, difficult regulatory environment, etc., are identified. Entrepreneurs in challenging environments develop adversity resilience (high adversity quotient) and rely on such phenomena such as social capital to succeed. Using behavioral theories of entrepreneurship such as rational choice theory and Myers-Brigg Type Indicator (MBTI), this chapter explains the contribution of personality traits and social and cultural environment including cultural beliefs on entrepreneurial success.

Learning from Those Who Do

This case study represents one of a series of personal interviews with entrepreneurs in Ghana and the United States. In particular, this chapter details the journey of American entrepreneur Terry Duperon, who started Duperon Corporation, a Michigan-based screening technologies company. In this chapter, the authors describe the motivating factors, operationalization, challenges, and successes of starting a business as experienced by Mr. Duperon. They also describe the unique challenges of family relationships and firm performance within the context of a family firm. Finally, in the spirit of learning from those who do, the authors discuss the mental attributes deemed critical for a successful business venture according to a practicing entrepreneur. The study, which takes a narrative approach, contributes to existing literature on both entrepreneurs and family business.