Journal of Developmental Entrepreneurship

This study examines conditions that necessitate the adoption of a hybrid strategy in a dynamic market. The analysis is operationalized on a multisectorial sample of 610 firms in Ghana. The binomial logit regression model was estimated to examine the probability of the sampled firms to adopt hybrid strategy based on an array of competitive-based and firm-specific variables. The results show that generally, firms with superior firm performance, high organizational capabilities in marketing and innovation, strong positions in the implementation of single strategies, low industrial competitiveness and high growth in firm size are more likely to adopt a hybrid strategy to increase competitive advantage. However, we also observed that conditions are not homogenous across industries. We conclude that manufacturing firms apply competitive-based criteria rather than firm-specific factors in their decision to adopt hybrid strategies.

The current evidence-base regarding the impacts of corruption on firm performance is based largely on studies of individual countries and contains mixed results. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to achieve a better insight into this relationship by reporting the results of a firm-level analysis of the impacts of corruption on firm performance using World Bank Enterprise Survey (WBES) data across 40 African countries. The clear result is that corruption significantly enhances rather than harms annual sales, employment and productivity growth rates. The outcome is to re-theorize participation in acts of corruption as beneficial for the individual firms engaged in such activity, while recognizing the wider evidence that this is not an optimal strategy at the aggregate country level. The outcome will be to advance knowledge about how corruption needs to be tackled. To eliminate corruption, it is shown here to be necessary for public authorities to recognize that corruption is an efficient strategy at the firm level and to adopt measures to alter the cost/benefit ratio confronting individual enterprises, and at the same time, to address the country-level formal institutional deficiencies that characterize many developing countries and result in the prevalence of corruption.

Entrepreneurial and business skills are generally considered key to microbusiness success, hence to Microfinance Institution (MFI) clients’ loan repayment as well. However, empirical evidence is largely lacking, and where present, it is inconclusive on the importance of these skills for microfinance success. The present paper uses objective MFI loan repayment data to empirically test whether loan repayment rates positively correlate with self-evaluations on entrepreneurial and business skills of loan clients. A survey was conducted among 235 loan clients of uniCredit — an MFI in Ghana. We establish that MFI clients’ self-evaluation of their entrepreneurial and business skills are not related to their loan repayment rates. However, we observe that women repay their loans better than do male microbusiness entrepreneurs, and loan repayment was also better for those entrepreneurs with more than 15 years of business experience.

There are many underlying reasons justifying the importance of researching the informal economy from the academic and the practical perspectives. Evidence suggests that commercial activities generated by the informal economy could constitute an average of thirty percent of all commercial activities across the world with informal entrepreneurship consuming a big chunk of such activities. This research will focus on exploring the antecedents of informal entrepreneurship in Egypt as a developing country that is still undergoing a complicated political and economic phase that started in the financial crisis of 2008 passing by the revolution in 2011 and the subsequent corrective revolution in 2013.

Microlending has become one of the primary interventions intended to alleviate poverty in the developing world. However, empirical results of the benefits of microlending have been disappointing. This article proposes the common microlending practice of group lending reduces the likelihood borrowers will engage in innovative activities, which has been demonstrated to be a key factor in improving borrower outcomes. The hypotheses proposed are tested with data collected from interviews with 340 microloan borrowers in Ethiopia. The findings are consistent with a weak sorting effect where innovative individuals are less likely to participate in group loans than individual loans, and a social pressure effect where innovative individuals taking group loans are pressured to behave less innovatively than their peers taking individual loans.

Today, social entrepreneurship is considered as a growth driver for emerging countries. This phenomenon that combines economic utility and social efficiency has recently attracted considerable interest in the academic world as well as among public institutions. In Morocco, it is during the last decade we witnessed an infatuation toward this new type of entrepreneurship. Several actors are working today to promote the sector; however, there is a lack of research on their role in developing the ecosystem of the Moroccan social enterprise. Based on a qualitative study, this article aims to map the stakeholders of social entrepreneurship, their missions and their role in creating a favorable environment for the emergence of social entrepreneurs. The results are presented as an exploratory basis.

This paper examines how sub-Saharan Africans do business in China, particularly in the province of Guangdong. Through a qualitative approach, the paper analyzes data obtained from twenty interviews with sub-Saharan Africans. It’s a descriptive study that explores the strategies, tactics and attitudes adopted by those sub-Saharan Africans to cope with a particularly difficult Chinese business environment. Using the concepts of foreignness and adaptation, the study identified four categories of immigrant entrepreneurs: the assimilators, the conservatives, the adventurers and the cautious. Concomitantly, this research identified factors and skills that contributed significantly to immigrants’ success in China. The paper also underlines challenges sub-Saharan Africans still face in China and the unconventional tactics they use. The study represents an insightful exploration of an increasingly important subject but still under-studied. It calls for a thorough research toward the understanding of African businesses in China.