Political Connections and African Business

What is it about?

This article brill.com Entrepreneurship development in Africa: Insights from Nigeria’s and Zimbabwe’s telecoms Nnamdi O Madichie, Knowledge Mpofu, Jerry Kolo Entrepreneurship in Africa, 172-208, 2017 This chapter highlights the challenges and opportunities for entrepreneurship development in two sub-Saharan African (ssa) contexts. The chapter is developed from a cross-national comparative analysis Nigeria and Zimbabwe, and using the telecommunications (henceforth telecoms) sector, as its point of departure. In the main, the chapter highlights some of the pertinent issues that shape the current, and future, trends in enterprise development in ssa, as championed by an arguably ‘new generation of African entrepreneurs.’Both case illustrations signpost emerging issues in enterprise development through compelling success stories of entrepreneurship initiatives despite infrastructure challenges and unstable economic and political landscapes experienced in the two ssa countries in recent years. Finally, a drilling down from the country level evaluation, the enterprises and their founders are profiled with a view to generating areas for future research exploration. Specifically, Nigeria’s Globacom, founded by Mike Adenuga, and Econet Wireless, founded by Zimbabwean Strive Masiyiwa, contribute, we hope, to current discourse on a “new generation”-and perhaps learning from the “old guard”-of enterprise development in ssa. This chapter would make for a good class discussion/debate for academics teaching on entrepreneurship, innovation, and international business subject areas–and especially those in African universities or those outside the region, but also delivering courses related to that discipline. View at brill.com [PDF] researchgate.netCited by 11Related articlesAll 5 versions rke.abertay.ac.uk Entrepreneurship development in Africa: insights from Nigeria's and Zimbabwe's telecoms Nnamdi O Madichie, Knowledge Mpofu, Jerry Kolo Entrepreneurship in Africa, 172-208, 2017 This chapter highlights the challenges and opportunities for entrepreneurship development in two sub-Saharan African (ssa) contexts. The chapter is developed from a cross-national comparative analysis Nigeria and Zimbabwe, and using the telecommunications (henceforth telecoms) sector, as its point of departure. In the main, the chapter highlights some of the pertinent issues that shape the current, and future, trends in enterprise development in ssa, as championed by an arguably ‘new generation of African entrepreneurs.’Both case illustrations signpost emerging issues in enterprise development through compelling success stories of entrepreneurship initiatives despite infrastructure challenges and unstable economic and political landscapes experienced in the two ssa countries in recent years. Finally, a drilling down from the country level evaluation, the enterprises and their founders are profiled with a view to generating areas for future research exploration. Specifically, Nigeria’s Globacom, founded by Mike Adenuga, and Econet Wireless, founded by Zimbabwean Strive Masiyiwa, contribute, we hope, to the current discourse on a “new generation ” and perhaps learning from the “old guard” of enterprise development in ssa. This chapter would make for a good class discussion/debate for academics teaching on entrepreneurship, innovation, and international business subject areas–and especially those in African universities or those outside the region, but also delivering courses related to that discipline.

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Photo by Jonas Lee on Unsplash

Photo by Jonas Lee on Unsplash

Why is it important?

Enterprise development in Sub-Saharan Africa is still a growing field for both research and political discourse. Intra-African investment is also gathering pace especially in the realm of services. However, for good or for evil, being on the good books of the ruling party of the day, rather than clever business models, would determine success of failure. This narrative, in our view, needs to change.

Perspectives