Contextualising African Studies: Challenges and the Way Forward

Our aim is to better understand access to finance and financial inclusion and how this impacts the development of female-run enterprises in Nigeria. In such a way, we can better understand the gendered context of entrepreneurship and the implications for business growth. This chapter adopts an interpretivist paradigm to explore the social reality within which entrepreneurship is enacted. Qualitative data are interpreted from semi-structured interviews of 10 Nigerian entrepreneurs, five males and five females. Findings reveal that, though structural support may be apparent, the entrepreneurial process of financing a business is characterised, in part, by social expectations of gender. It is through this social view of entrepreneurship that we provide an understanding of what it is to be entrepreneurial in practice. This chapter makes recommendations that in practice while financial institutions and policy makers may assume a ‘one size fits all’ approach to financial inclusion through different programmes currently available for entrepreneurs by the various governmental and non-governmental institutions in Nigeria, the context of gender has implications for the nature of business activity, particularly in a society characterised by patriarchy. This study also makes practical contributions for research and for practice.

Corporate governance has become a core topic in management research and business practice. Recent debates like – environmental responsibility, sustainability, ethics, corporate control, generation, protection and distribution of wealth, the role of the board and senior executives in setting standards for performance management, and stakeholder relationship management – have strong links to organisational trust. However, management literature has been relatively silent on how various corporate governance configurations and perspectives potentially shape trust relations within the organisation, especially in Africa. Thus, this chapter reviews corporate governance through the lens of the institutional logics perspective evident in western capitalism and develops a framework connecting various governance configurations to organisational trust. Doing so provides new directions for those seeking to develop further research in corporate governance, institutional logics and organisational trust.

Drawing on both the stakeholder theory and Carroll’s Corporate Social Responsibility Pyramid, this chapter explores sustainability practice challenges of a gold minning multinational enterprise in Ghana. Primary data was collected through observation and the interviewing of multi-stakeholder groups. We found that internal stakeholders perceive sustainability expenditure as costly. However, while employees of the case enterprise see the cost as depleting shareholders’ wealth, managers view them as investment with possible long-term benefits. Meanwhile, the external stakeholders perceive the gold mining enterprise’s sustainability expenditure as meagre and that beneficiary communities are not economically empowered to sustain those investments. Again, we found that government’s inability to clamp down illegal gold mining threatens economic and environmental sustainability. Additionally, members of the host community identify the lack of adequate employment opportunities within the entity as a hindrance to their economic empowerment. We submit that the resolution of the sustainability challenges would contribute to the balancing of stakeholders’ expectations: the conduct of ethical business through compliance to environmental laws; promotion of host communities’ social well-being; and improved economic returns for shareholders. By meeting the needs of stakeholders, gold mining enterprises could gain acceptance in their host communities and boost corporate reputation.

This article explores the use of informal socio-cultural practices to mitigate formal institutional voids in a qualitative study of informal self-employment in Bulawayo in Zimbabwe. Informal socio-cultural values and practices such as ubuntu and indaba were observed to be making meaningful contribution to business and lives. Development of formal institutions as a consequence was not observed though. The article proposes that economic development efforts might best serve communities in sub-Saharan Africa by facilitating institutional development that converges with local socio-culturally informed practices rather than focus on attempts to absorb informal work into a homogenously understood formal institutional system.

This chapter presents the outcome of an empirical study titled ‘Knowledge Sharing and Transfer (KST) that Really Works: An exploration of KST in Sub-Saharan South African Public Sector Institutions’. Enablers of KST were explored through the lens of lived experiences of managers working at Gautrain Management Agency (GMA), a rail transport public sector operator in South Africa. Qualitative data were collected from 15 managers and analysed using Thematic and Trans Positional Cognition Approach (TPCA) qualitative analytical tools. Four themes, essential originating antecedent factors, complementary people enabling factors, organisational enabling factors and effective KST implementing factors emerged. Rahman’s KST model was adopted as a theoretical framework and used to better understand the study findings. The current study affirms two elements within the theoretical framework, namely, complementary people enabling factors and organisational enabling factors, while the remaining two, essential originating antecedent factors and effective KST implementing factors, were not affirmed. This study contributes a new KST framework that helps business managers understand KST from the South African public sector practitioners’ perspectives, which represents this study’s contribution to the business performance measurement body of knowledge and practice.

There seems to be no controversy about Nigeria being an agricultural country with food sufficiency up till the late 1970s. However, in recent times the country is finding it very difficult to provide sufficient food for the teeming population which has resulted in the majority of the country’s citizens slipping into poverty. The ability of the country to provide sufficiently for the citizens was a result of a lack of reliable and effective developmental and transformational strategies in the agricultural sector of the country which is a major employer of labour in the rural community. To this end, this chapter mainly focuses on factors inhibiting the development of agricultural companies in Nigeria and how to overcome the developmental barriers in the agricultural sector in Nigeria. The findings from the review show that the bane of the agricultural sector in Nigeria is due to the lack of an agricultural regulatory framework and policy transmission mechanism and over-dependence on oil revenue amongst other things (Adams, 2016). It is therefore imperative for the country to embark on the development of a reliable agricultural framework and model that will aid food sufficiency in the country.

This chapter provides an insightful exploration into the often neglected narratives within isolated African markets, with a specific focus on Nigeria. Contrary to the prevailing belief that traditional market systems are outdated, this study argues for their enduring relevance in fostering economic development in the region. By delving into the unique dynamics and historical context of Nigerian markets, this chapter challenges conventional perspectives and offers a fresh perspective on the continued importance of traditional market systems. It unveils the intricate web of market relationships that have nurtured economic activities, showcasing the adaptability and endurance of these markets amidst changing circumstances. Ultimately, this chapter underscores the vital role of Nigerian markets in fostering economic development, highlighting their potential as engines of growth and agents of change within the African context.

This chapter presents the outcome of a study that examined the phenomena ‘Is Tourism Regulation Catalyst for Abuja Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Nigeria, Hotels Business Performance Innovation?’ Previous studies on this subject area have been largely done around tourism and its impact on hotel business performance and the relationship between tourism regulation and hotel business performance from mostly western perspectives. Hence, this study aims to investigate the direct effect of tourism regulations on hotel business performance in Nigeria. Quantitative survey questionnaires were used to collect data from 176 participants comprising general managers and departmental heads in 22 key Abuja FCT Nigerian hotels. Balanced Scorecard (BSC) developed by Norton and Kaplan was adopted as the study’s theoretical framework. Data collected were analysed using the simple linear regression technique and Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) statistical analysis software tool.

The result of the analysis shows that tourism regulation has a significant and positive correlation with Abuja hotel business performances based on the BSC four dimensions of financial, customer, processes and learning and growth. The unique city characteristics of Abuja FCT were also identified as an issue for consideration in future tourism regulation innovation by the regulatory authorities. This study contributes to business performance measurement literature from the Abuja FCT hotels, Nigerian perspective, and sets an agenda for the Nigerian tourism regulators, the Nigeria Tourism Development Corporation (NTDC) charged with diversifying the Nigerian economy revenue through tourism performance innovation. Also, a policy study into city characteristics classification as a way of innovating tourism regulations and hotels business performance is suggested.

Entrepreneurship is a prominent area of inquiry which is enriched by an ample literature base and challenged by definitional deficiencies. Over the years, multiple perspectives of entrepreneurship have emerged and a holistic approach to entrepreneurship has been proposed. This can facilitate the continued enlargement of the entrepreneurship field and allow for interdisciplinary research within the African region. This chapter contributes to the literature on entrepreneurship in developing economies by providing an extensive review of the various approaches that entrepreneurship has been conceptualised. Nine themes are explored: the great person, economic perspective, psychological perspective, sociological perspective, behavioural perspective, management, intrapreneurship, cognitive perspective and leadership perspective. This is followed by an examination of entrepreneurship as a process, as a new venture creation and as an art of opportunity recognition and exploitation. In the last section of this chapter, a clarion call is made for more African scholarship and research in the field of entrepreneurship.