Business Environment In Sub Saharan Africa

In today’s global environment, making strategic business choices is key to successful decision-making. This book is intended to assist any multinational companies or executives to swiftly understand the business environment in the sub-Saharan African region and avoid common mistakes. It will also assist investors who are dreaming to familiarize themselves with the region’s business environment to know what is required to make a success of venturing in sub-Saharan Africa. Thus, this book will also inspire the African entrepreneurs to be gifted players on the global marketplace. This unique text provides an occasion for an excellent strategic approach to its users to explore the economic, ethical, and moral practices and the political, legal, technological, and regulatory issues of the sub-Saharan African countries to better handle the challenges and opportunities managers will face while making their operational decisions. In addition to the topics aforementioned, issues such as economic development, exports/imports, natural resource inventory, the monetary system in different sub-Saharan African countries, and trade and foreign direct investment themes will also be addressed. Understanding the African approach to business and being mindful of the business culture will lead to great success while conducting business on the African continent.

Why is the private sector yet to take off in much sub-Saharan Africa? Drawing on a unique set of enterprise surveys, Vijaya Ramachandran and her co-authors identify the biggest obstacles: inadequate infrastructure (especially unreliable electricity and crumbing roads) and burdensome regulation. They then show how ethnic minorities dominate the private sector in many countries, inhibiting competition and demands for a better business environment, and thus impeding the emergence of an entrepreneurial middle class. Based on this careful diagnosis, the authors suggest investing in infrastructure and reforming regulation to lower the cost of doing business, and increasing the access to education of a broader-based business class that crosses ethnic divides. Book jacket.

In today's global environment, making strategic business choices is key to successful decision-making. This book is intended to assist any multinational companies or executives to swiftly understand the business environment in the sub-Saharan African region and avoid common mistakes. It will also assist investors who are dreaming to familiarize themselves with the region's business environment to know what is required to make a success of venturing in sub-Saharan Africa. Thus, this book will also inspire the African entrepreneurs to be gifted players on the global marketplace. This unique text provides an occasion for an excellent strategic approach to its users to explore the economic, ethical, and moral practices and the political, legal, technological, and regulatory issues of the sub-Saharan African countries to better handle the challenges and opportunities managers will face while making their operational decisions. In addition to the topics aforementioned, issues such as economic development, exports/imports, natural resource inventory, the monetary system in different sub-Saharan African countries, and trade and foreign direct investment themes will also be addressed. Understanding the African approach to business and being mindful of the business culture will lead to great success while conducting business on the African continent.

Africa suffers from two main diseases: poor management and a lack of vibrant entrepreneurial activity. The continent has the raw materials, the people, and the potential to be developed, and yet there remain barriers that prevent it from bettering itself. To promote entrepreneurship as an engine of economic development and growth, the author has developed a Quintuple Helix Model which advocates mutual cooperation and information sharing among the five helices and provides valuable guidelines to policymakers on how to build entrepreneurship ecosystems in sub-Saharan Africa. It goes on to examine the roles that government, donors, and public and private sectors play and how Africans themselves might take the development of entrepreneurial societies into their own hands. The book includes seven chapters that emphasize the key role that each of the five components could play in the development of entrepreneurial ecosystems. Entrepreneurship scholars, policy makers, and national and local governments of sub-Saharan Africa will value this insight as they strive to create a more favorable landscape for their citizenry.

In the face of limited progress toward meeting Millennium Development Goals or addressing climate change and resource degradation, increasing attention turns to harnessing the entrepreneurial, innovative, managerial and financial capacities of business for improved social and environmental outcomes. A more proactive role for business in sustainable development is especially pertinent in sub-Saharan Africa, which has been plagued by conflict and poverty but shows signs of a brighter future as the world’s second-fastest-growing region. The book considers how the socio-economic context influences the objectives of social innovation and even our definition of what we mean by social innovation. Secondly, the book aims to show how social innovation initiatives emerge and fare in context of the limited ability of many African countries to provide public goods and services.

"The series is sponsored by the Agence Francaise de Developpement and the World Bank."

The importance of entrepreneurship as an engine for innovation, economic growth, job creation and wealth especially in the context of Sub-Saharan Africa cannot be overemphasized. Entrepreneurship in Sub-Saharan Africa examines the socio-cultural, global, economic, financial, political, infrastructure and organizational contexts of entrepreneurship in Sub-Saharan Africa. Second, the book presents a strategic management approach for the management of entrepreneurial and small business ventures in the region. Written with a focus on theory and practice, the book is suitable for undergraduate and graduate courses in business and management studies and as a reference tool for practicing and prospective entrepreneurs, small business owners and economic change agents. Keywords: Entrepreneurship, Small Business Management, Sub-Saharan Africa, Strategic Management, Marketing, Globalization, Business Plan, Socio-cultural, financial, political, institutional, infrastructure and organizational contexts. Number of pages: 684

This pioneering collection seeks to understand why and how some digital enterprises in Africa progress while others firms either stagnate or regress. Using a range of detailed case studies, it addresses the challenges and barriers that are in place and how some outstanding digital firms deal with operating in a hostile business environment. While digital platforms have created equal access for small businesses, many digital entrepreneurs in Africa continue to struggle with local environments replete with corruption, and other economic inefficiencies. The contributions move the debate forward by addressing the challenges, opportunities, and prospects of digital enterprise in Africa. Placing special emphasis on how African new entrant digital firms are shaping the landscape and forging a new beginning for Africa, this book offers entrepreneurial perspectives to both researchers and policy-makers seeking to support and stimulate entrepreneurship in the new era.