3 research outputs found
Role of Entrepreneurship Ecosystem (EE) in Building Resilient Entrepreneurs in Sub-Saharan Africa: an exploratory study in DRC
No full textThe notion of entrepreneurial ecosystem (EE) is increasingly getting the attention of scholars who are interesting in the role of EE (Stam & Spigel, 2018; Spigel, 2017; Stam, 2015; Jaén et al., 2013, p. 16), and in particular, the role university entrepreneurial ecosystems (UEE) plays in affecting the nature and quality of entrepreneurial activity in a given region (Miller & Act, 2017; Hayter, 2016; Fetter et al.,2010; Hechevarria & Ingram, 2014; Sherwood, 2018, p. 245; Rothaermel et al., 2007). Through entrepreneurial activity they can assist to eliminate unemployment (Robson et al., 2009), improve quality of life (Zahra, et al., 2008), empower people to rise out of poverty (Santos et al., 2019), decrease reliance on natural resources (Sine & Lee, 2009), and boost GDP. Hence, EE/UEE are considered as an environment in which entrepreneurs develop diverse abilities (Lux, Macau et al., 2020; Isenberg, 2010). Iacobucci, & Perugini (2021) demonstrated that the interactions between elements of an EE increase the entrepreneurial performance of a region and affect economic growth. From this perspective, they showed that entrepreneurial activity should be perceived as heterogeneous where different factors interact. From these interactions, EE becomes relevant to explain economic resilience, which is the capacity to resist and recover from external shocks (Martin 2012; Cadenasso et al., 2006; Roundy et al., 2017). The ability to respond to external shocks relies on the capacity of an entrepreneur to create new employment and wealth, and stimulating competition and innovation (Mueller, Van Stel, and Storey 2008; Huggins and Williams 2011). it means that the level of intensity in the interactions between EE elements whether they are low or strong defines the resilience of an ecosystem. However, there is surprisingly little empirical validation of the positive impact of those structures, with few or no evaluation of how EE/UEE actors play a critical role in building resilient entrepreneurs (Iacobucci, & Perugini, 2021). Existent study in the field shows that the regions with a high level of entrepreneurship should be less exposed to the consequences of exogenous shocks. Which means they are more resilient compared to other. The problem is that this study same as other study on EE/UEE, rely on western countries (Kansheba, & Wald, 2020; Cao & Shi, 2021; Philip, 2017; Pittz and Hertz, 2018; Mason and Brown, 2014; Autio et al., 2018; Cukier et al., 2016; Isenberg, 2011). Ratten, & Jones (2018) pointed out that most of existent literature in the field has focused on USA, Asia and Europe, with little attention paid to Africa's position in the global economy. Less attention has been done to conceptualize, theorize, and empirically support entrepreneurship ecosystem study in the context of Africa which is dominated by necessity entrepreneurs (Igwe, Odunukan, Rahman, Rugara, & Ochinanwata, 2020). As a result, there is evidence of potential scientific and political pressure to keep some results under the radar. Indeed, there is a need to provide extensive answers in consideration of the context in a given region (Audretsch et al., 2021; Welter, Gartner, & Wright, 2016) while studying EE/UEE in Africa on one side, and the necessity to increase our knowledge on the EE/UEE - resilient entrepreneurship activities in a resourceconstrained environment. Building on existing EE literatures (Nkusi, Cunningham, Nyuur, & Pattinson, 2020) and sustainability (Iacobucci, & Perugini 2021), this paper aims at contributing to a better understanding of the role of entrepreneurship ecosystem (EE/UEE) in building resilient entrepreneurs. Specifically, we investigate what mechanisms and institutional approaches entrepreneurial ecosystems use in transitional economies to build resilient local entrepreneurs in sub-Saharan Africa? is there any difference in terms of the governance of EE among university, public, private actors and international organizations that could contribute to the understanding of the phenomenon on sub-Saharan Africa? Sub-Saharan Africa is well recognized as a region with plenty of resources and opportunities, while it’s characterized by the high presence of necessity entrepreneurs (Igwe, Odunukan, Rahman, Rugara, & Ochinanwata, 2020) who do not have the necessary education and entrepreneurship skills to compete in the local, national, and global markets. These local entrepreneurs and startups in sub-Saharan countries face several challenges in terms of accessing and meeting the social and economic needs of the market at local, national, and regional levels. One of the reasons behind this situation relies on the barrier they are facing to access knowledge and technology on one side, the existing knowledge that can be accessed are not accessible due to the complexity of the scientific language. In this context, there has been a lot of effort from the government (Taye-Faniran, & Olowu, 2016), private actor, universities, and international organizations (Niyonkuru,2016; Drewry,2014) to support local entrepreneurs to achieve social and economic growth in sub-Saharan Africa countries. Consequently, in recent years, if we can notice an increasingly remarkable entrepreneurial dynamic and the emergence of success stories in Africa, empirical evidence also shows that local entrepreneurs are underperforming in sub-Saharan Africa (Thompson, Shepherd, Welch, & Anyimadu,2017). Given the context of our research, we will proceed to exploratory research by mobilizing case studies (O'leary, 2017:143) from the four main local regions in DRC (Kinshasa, Goma, Bukavu and Lubumbashi). This ongoing study rely on a combination of data collection based on secondary data from organizations such as Briter Bridges: https://briterbridges.com, on examining existing documents and literature on one side, and interview-based data and traditional survey-based data (Acquaah, 2012; Levin & Barnard, 2013) on the other side from key EE/UEE actors and using both bottom up and top down approaches
