Subsistence entrepreneurship the interplay of collaborative innovation, sustainability and social goals

Subsistence Entrepreneurship: The Role of Collaborative Innovation, Sustainability and Social Goals.. Subsistence Entrepreneurship: The Roleof Collaborative Innovation, Sustainability an

Contributions to Management Science

Innovation, Sustainability and Social Goals

Contributions to Management Science

Innovation, Sustainability and Social Goals

Contributions to Management Science

Vanessa Ratten • Paul Jones • Vitor Braga •

Carla Susana Marques

Editors

Subsistence Entrepreneurship

The Interplay of Collaborative Innovation, Sustainability and Social Goals

Vila Real, Portugal

Contributions to Management Science

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-11542-5

Library of Congress Control Number: 2019936558

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019

This work is subject to copyright All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the

broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed.

The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc in this publication

protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.

The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional

This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Subsistence Entrepreneurship: The Role of Collaborative Innovation,

Sustainability and Social Goals 1

Vanessa Ratten, Paul Jones, Vitor Braga, and Carla Susana Marques

Firm Founders’ Passivity as a Source of Serendipitous Opportunity

Discovery 7

Antti Kauppinen

Commonomics: Rhetoric and Reality of the African Growth Tragedy 17

Jerry Kolo, Nnamdi O Madichie, and Chris H Mbah

Entrepreneurship in the Solidarity Economy: A Valuation of Models

Based on the Quadruple Helix and Civil Society 33

José Manuel Saiz-Álvarez and Jesús Manuel Palma-Ruiz

Evaluating the Business Model of a Work Integration Social

Enterprise in Cantabria 51

Elisa Baraibar-Diez, María D Odriozola, Ignacio Llorente,

and José Luis Fernández Sánchez

Encouraging Indigenous Self-Employment in Franchising 69

Scott Weaven, Lorelle Frazer, Mark Brimble, Kerry Bodle,

Maurice Roussety, and Park Thaichon

Shadow Economy Index for Moldova and Romania 89

Talis J Putnins, Arnis Sauka, and Adriana Ana Maria Davidescu

Survivability and Sustainability of Traditional Industry

in the Twenty-First Century: A Case of Indonesian Traditional

Furniture SME in Jepara 131

Danu Patria, Petrus A Usmanij, and Vanessa Ratten

The Minimum Wage Fuels Romania’s Shadow Economy? 155

Adriana Ana Maria Davidescu and Friedrich Schneider

v

Gamifying Innovation and Innovating Through Gamification 183

Agnessa Shpakova, Viktor Dörfler, and Jill MacBryde

Work Hard, Play Hard: Work-Life Balance in Small Business 195

Robyn Young, Lorelle Frazer, Scott Weaven, Maurice Roussety,

and Park Thaichon

Stay Ahead of a Game or Stay Still: The Impact of Learning

and Development on Business Performance 215

Janette Timms, Lorelle Frazer, Scott Weaven, and Park Thaichon

List of Contributors

Elisa Baraibar-Diez University of Cantabria, Santander, Cantabria, SpainKerry Bodle Department of Accounting, Finance and Economics, GriffithUniversity, Southport, QLD, Australia

Vitor Braga Porto Polytechnic, Porto, Portugal

Mark Brimble Department of Accounting Finance and Economics, GriffithUniversity, Nathan, QLD, Australia

Adriana Ana Maria Davidescu Department of Statistics and Econometrics,Bucharest University of Economic Studies, Bucharest, Romania

Department of Labour Market Policies, National Scientific Research Institute forLabour and Social Protection, Bucharest, Romania

Viktor Dörfler University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, Scotland, UK

Lorelle Frazer School of Business, University of the Sunshine Coast, SippyDowns, QLD, Australia

Paul Jones Swansea University, Swansea, UK

Antti Kauppinen College of Business, School of Management, RMIT University,Melbourne, VIC, Australia

Jerry Kolo College of Architecture, Arts and Design, American University ofSharjah, Sharjah, United Arab Emirates

Ignacio Llorente University of Cantabria, Santander, Cantabria, Spain

Nnamdi O Madichie Centre for Research and Enterprise, Bloomsbury InstituteLondon, London, UK

Jill MacBryde University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, Scotland, UK

vii

Carla Susana Marques Universidade de Trás-os-Montes e Alto Douro, Vila Real,Portugal

Chris H Mbah School of Business and Entrepreneurship, American University ofNigeria, Yola, Adamawa State, Nigeria

María D Odriozola University of Cantabria, Santander, Cantabria, SpainJesús Manuel Palma-Ruiz Universidad Autónoma de Chihuahua, Chihuahua,Mexico

Danu Patria Universitas Teknologi Surabaya, Surabaya, Indonesia

Talis J Putnins Stockholm School of Economics in Riga (Latvia), Riga, LatviaVanessa Ratten Department of Entrepreneurship, Innovation and Marketing,

La Trobe University, Melbourne, VIC, Australia

Maurice Roussety Department of Marketing, Griffith University, Nathan, QLD,Australia

José Luis Fernández Sánchez University of Cantabria, Santander, Cantabria,Spain

José Manuel Saiz-Álvarez EGADE Business School-Tecnologico de Monterrey,Zapopan, Jalisco, Mexico

Arnis Sauka Centre for Sustainable Business, Stockholm School of Economics inRiga, Riga, Latvia

Friedrich Schneider Johannes Kepler University of Linz, Linz, Austria

Agnessa Shpakova Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh, Scotland, UK

Park Thaichon Department of Marketing, Griffith University, Southport, QLD,Australia

Janette Timms School of Business, University of the Sunshine Coast, SippyDowns, QLD, Australia

Petrus A Usmanij Department of Entrepreneurship, Innovation and Marketing,

La Trobe University, Melbourne, VIC, Australia

Scott Weaven Department of Marketing, Griffith University, Southport, QLD,Australia

Robyn Young Department of Marketing, Griffith University, Nathan, QLD,Australia

Subsistence Entrepreneurship: The Role

of Collaborative Innovation, Sustainability

and Social Goals

Vanessa Ratten, Paul Jones, Vitor Braga, and Carla Susana Marques

Abstract The goal of this chapter is to discuss the role of subsistence ship in the society Increasingly both business and government are focusing atlow-income consumers and the role they play in the innovation process This hasmeant greater emphasis has been given to understand the role of these consumerswho are called ‘subsistence consumers’ because they live at the bottom of thepyramid and exist on low income and wages This chapter discusses subsistenceconsumers in terms of how they can be innovative and also the importance thatcollaboration plays in achieving social goals Managerial and social implications arediscussed in terms of how business can harness the collective power of subsistenceentrepreneurs in order to create a better global community

entrepreneur-1 Introduction

The world population is growing and there are a number of people who live inpoverty This has led to a need to produce products and services at an affordable rate.The goal of this book is to understand the way low-priced products and services arebeing produced by subsistence entrepreneurs through a variety of different contexts.This book offers an analysis of the practices of subsistence entrepreneurs through

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019

V Ratten et al (eds.), Subsistence Entrepreneurship, Contributions to Management

Science, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-11542-5_1

1

their cultural and social endeavours This chapter begins by discussing the literature

on subsistence entrepreneurship, which is followed by some implications forresearch and public policy

Subsistence entrepreneurs are individuals at the base of the pyramid who areconsidered poor and barely make a living (Viswanathan et al.2010) The base of thepyramid market‘is characterized as illiterate, in poor health, of meager resources,inaccessible by media, geographically isolated and inexperienced with consumption’(Nakato and Weidner2012: 21) Individuals living a subsistence existence tend tohave few resources and focus on short-term objectives Subsistence entrepreneurs help

to alleviate poverty by operating small businesses Viswanathan et al (2014: 1) definesubsistence entrepreneurship as‘entrepreneurial actions, undertaken in the informalsector of the economy, by individuals living in poverty in bottom of the pyramid(BOP) or subsistence marketplaces to create value for their consumers’ The bottom ofthe pyramid has also been referred to as ‘the base of the pyramid’, ‘low-incomeconsumers’ and ‘subsistence consumers’ (Nakato and Weidner2012)

Many subsistence entrepreneurs have social vulnerabilities due to where they workand their living conditions (Ratten2014) This has led to subsistence entrepreneursneeding to think and act differently to other forms of entrepreneurs (Dana and Ratten

2017) The unique setting for subsistence entrepreneurship requires a consideration ofthe context in terms of sustainability and social goals The large population in emergingeconomies like China and India have required a reexamination of low-income con-sumers in these countries as their sheer number makes them an important consumersegment (Ratten2017)

Subsistence markets are defined as ‘markets in which consumers barely havesufficient resources for day-to-day living’ (Rivera-Santos et al.2012: 1722) Thesemarkets comprise subsistence entrepreneurs who are also referred to as subsistenceconsumer-merchants because they both consume and operate small businesses(Venugopal et al 2015) Subsistence consumers are different to other types ofconsumers as they face uncertainty in their daily activities This results in a lack ofcontrol over whether they are able to buy and consume certain products Weidner

et al (2010: 559) state that‘subsistence consumers, both individuals and families,live in substandard housing and have limited or no education; they also have limited

or no access to sanitation, portable water, and health care, and earn minimal income’.This makes it challenging for businesses focusing on these consumers as theystruggle to understand their buying patterns (Ratten and Ferreira2017) In addition,many subsistence consumers have limited transportation, which makes them reliant

on certain geographical areas for their product needs This is reflective in the lowlevels of education amongst subsistence consumers and the lack of infrastructure inthese geographic locations (Ratten and Welpe2011)

Work on subsistence entrepreneurship has been limited in the mainstream preneurship literature due to the emphasis on corporate entrepreneurship Thisomission has resulted in an increase in social entrepreneurship, but still the research

entre-on subsistence entrepreneurship is lacking (Ratten et al 2016) However, this ischanging as there is both kudos and money to be gained from researching subsis-tence entrepreneurship This derives from governments and international aid orga-nizations wanting to help people at the bottom of the pyramid Moreover, there is an

awareness from business people about market potential in subsistence markets Due

to innovation being a necessity for those in subsistence markets, it can breedbusiness creation In addition, the entrepreneurial spirit of consumers at the bottom

of the pyramid is interesting

The aim of this book is tofill a gap in the literature by providing a number ofstudies on subsistence entrepreneurship and collaborative innovation The motiva-tion for this book is to expand the knowledge on subsistence entrepreneurship inorder to guide future research By doing so, a better understanding of the way tomanage innovation can be presented The chapters in this book are both exploratoryand explanatory in nature, thereby presenting a broad overview about the rolesubsistence entrepreneurship plays in society We hope that the chapters in thisbook will spur more work into what makes subsistence entrepreneurship unique anddeserving of more attention

2 Goal of Book

The chapters in this book constitute a preliminary effort to examine the role ofsubsistence entrepreneurship in the global economy The chapters vary in scope anddetail with a range of geographic settings included This enables a comprehensiveunderstanding about the role of subsistence entrepreneurs in society Accordingly,whilst the results of each chapter are somewhat exploratory in nature, thefindingscontribute to our knowledge about subsistence entrepreneurship There needs to bemore emphasis on the uniqueness and vitality of subsistence entrepreneurs, who arevery useful in linking social and cultural conditions with business activity Interest-ing questions still remain about the specifics of subsistence entrepreneurship such as:How do entrepreneurs in subsistence marketplaces use their networks tofind infor-mation? Do they rely on social networks to facilitate word-of-mouth marketing, or

do they use technological devices?

3 Overview of Chapters

The chapters in this book all relate to the interplay of collaborative innovation,sustainability and social goals The second chapter of this book titled‘SubsistenceEntrepreneurship in Ethnic Religion and Sociocultural Spaces: A Case Study’focuses on the social aspects of subsistence entrepreneurship As religion and culturehave an impact on subsistence consumers, it is important to understand the roleethnicity can play The third chapter titled‘Firm Founders’ Passivity as a Source ofSerendipitous Opportunity Discovery’ focuses on a new context for subsistenceentrepreneurship in terms of chance encounters leading to business ventures This

is an interesting chapter as it analyses the discovery process leading to subsistenceentrepreneurship The fourth chapter titled‘Commonomics: Rhetoric and Reality of

Subsistence Entrepreneurship: The Role of Collaborative Innovation 3

the African Growth Tragedy’ analyses the context of emerging economies andsubsistence entrepreneurship This is an important context given most subsistenceentrepreneurship occurs in developing countries Thefifth chapter titled ‘Entrepre-neurship in the Solidarity Economy: A Valuation of Models Based on the QuadrupleHelix and Civil Society’ focuses on a new form of economic evaluation leading tosocial change This is an important part of understanding how government, businessand education interlink to enable entrepreneurship The sixth chapter titled‘Evalu-ating the Business Model of a Work Integration Social Enterprise in Cantabria’focuses on social issues surrounding entrepreneurship The seventh chapter is titled

‘Encouraging Indigenous Self-Employment in Franchising’ and focuses on vantaged communities The eighth chapter is titled‘Transformational Entrepreneur-ship Through Social Innovation and Public Sector Management’ and examines thepublic sector The ninth chapter is titled‘Shadow Economy Index for Moldova andRomania’ and analyses the informal economy in Europe The tenth chapter is titled

disad-‘Survivability and Sustainability of Traditional Industry in the Twenty-First tury: A Case of Indonesian Traditional Furniture SME in Jepara’ and highlights howemerging economies in Asia are utilizing sustainable forms of entrepreneurship Theeleventh chapter is titled ‘The Minimum Wage Fuels Romania’s Shadow Econ-omy?’ and analyses the informal sector The twelfth chapter is titled ‘GamifyingInnovation and Innovating Through Gamification’ and discusses the technologyaspects surrounding social innovation The thirteenth chapter is titled‘Work Hard,Play Hard: Work-Life Balance in Small Business’ and focuses on the small enter-prises in communities The fourteenth chapter is titled‘Stay Ahead of a Game orStay Still: The Impact of Learning and Development on Business Performance’ andprovides a good overview of future innovation scenarios

Cen-4 Managerial Implications

The chapters in this book present promising research avenues for subsistenceentrepreneurship It is worthwhile noting that whilst subsistence entrepreneurshipcan occur in any economic setting, most of it tends to be in developing economies.Subsistence entrepreneurship can be used as a social action tool in broadeningconsumer engagement and achieving better societal interaction with low-incomeconsumers The availability of low-priced goods and services is needed by the poorand marginalized communities Large multinationals are realizing the potential ofthis market and deliberately devising products to suit these consumers

For entrepreneurship practitioners, the chapters in this book highlight the need for

a holistic approach to subsistence business practices The chapters in the book pointout that there are various forms of subsistence entrepreneurship Entrepreneurshippractitioners need to use marketing in terms of integrating social needs with businesspractices In order to improve rates of subsistence entrepreneurship, entrepreneursneed to make their products in a way that appeals to consumers This includesdesigning products that fit into subsistence consumer’s lifestyles The practice of

subsistence entrepreneurship is complex and requires dedication As the chapters inthis book demonstrate, there are some hindrances to successful subsistence entre-preneurship that can be alleviated by proper planning An implication of this is theneed for entrepreneurs to rethink the development process Traditionally, subsis-tence products have been less costly forms of existing products in the market Butthis approach should change with a realization that some products are naturally forsubsistence consumers Due to unforeseen events and occurrences in the interna-tional market, different approaches to the innovation process for subsistence entre-preneurs need to be taken into account.

5 Research Implications

The chapters in this book have important research implications for the generalfield ofsubsistence entrepreneurship but also relatedfields such as marketing, innovation andmanagement As shown in the chapters of this book, not all subsistence entrepreneur-ship is the same In developing countries, subsistence entrepreneurship is likely to berelated to product market differentiation rather than technological innovation This isdue to the need for low-cost products that can be used for a number of reasons Inaddition, an appreciation of the requirements of bottom-of-the-pyramid consumers isneeded to understand adoption behaviour At the moment, we still do not knowwhether the innovation adoption process differs amongst developed and developingcountries in terms of subsistence products Thus, another research implication is tostudy the determinants and outcomes of adoption behaviour for subsistence entrepre-neurship Amongst the questions to address are what cycle of adoption behaviour isused by subsistence consumers and whether context affects the consumer experience.Additionally, more information about how to predict and explain subsistence entre-preneurship is needed This includes focusing on consumers as co-creators of productinnovations

The foregoing chapters leave some interesting areas for future research First, thereneeds to be more work on the different levels of analysis in subsistence entrepreneur-ship such as the entrepreneur, government and surrounding environment This willenrich the literature by providing different perspectives about stakeholder engagement

in subsistence entrepreneurship Second, a deeper understanding is required about thedifferent forms of subsistence entrepreneurship Past research has tended to usedeveloping countries as the context, but there are other contexts also prone tosubsistence entrepreneurship This includes rural and peripheral communities thathave fewer resources than urban localities There is little research on subsistenceentrepreneurship in developed countries This leads to intriguing research possibilitiesthat can delve deeper into how context affects entrepreneurship

The pioneering nature of this book lends itself to some unique researchfindings.Subsistence entrepreneurs have a different experience in new product development

as they learn by experience This provides an opportunity to compare differentpractices for managing in subsistence marketplaces This is of great benefit for

Subsistence Entrepreneurship: The Role of Collaborative Innovation 5

entrepreneurs who intend to be in subsistence markets that can be in turn applied toother market places This book provides an opportunity to broaden our understand-ing about the resource barriers to subsistence entrepreneurship We bring into focusthe need for subsistence entrepreneurship by emphasizing its importance.

Ratten V, Welpe I (2011) Community-based, social and societal entrepreneurship Entrep Reg Dev 23(5 –6):283–286

Ratten V, Ferreira J, Fernandes C (2016) Entrepreneurial network knowledge in emerging mies: a study of the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor Rev Int Bus Strateg 26(3):392 –409 Rivera-Santos M, Ru fin C, Kolk A (2012) Bridging the institutional divide: partnerships in subsistence markets J Bus Res 65:1721 –1727

econo-Venugopal S, Viswanathan M, Jung K (2015) Consumption constraints and entrepreneurial intentions

in subsistence marketplaces J Public Policy Mark 34(2):235 –251

Viswanathan M, Sridharan S, Ritchie R (2010) Understanding consumption and entrepreneurship

in subsistence marketplaces J Bus Res 63:570 –581

Viswanathan M, Echambadi R, Venugopal S, Sridharan S (2014) Subsistence entrepreneurship, value creation, and community exchange systems: a social capital explanation J Macromark 34:1 –14 Weidner K, Rosa J, Viswanathan M (2010) Marketing to subsistence consumers: lessons from practice.

J Bus Res 63:559 –569

Firm Founders ’ Passivity as a Source

of Serendipitous Opportunity Discovery

Antti Kauppinen

Abstract This chapter focuses on understanding how subsistence entrepreneursutilise chance discoveries in their marketplace A case study method is utilised tounderstand the process of serendipitous opportunity discovery in terms of obtainingmarket advantages Case studies from Finland and Denmark are utilised to analysethe subsistence entrepreneurship process from a transformational perspective Theresults indicate that some passivity can generate a serendipitous opportunity discov-ery Suggestions for future research are stated that highlight the link between thetransformational and subsistence entrepreneurship literature

Although the work on opportunities would wish it so, not all the opportunitycontent (i.e a requirement for an innovative virtue-based organisation and/or prod-uct or service) can be predicted (Merrilees et al.1998; Reynolds2005) In fact, the

A Kauppinen ( * )

College of Business, School of Management, RMIT University, Melbourne, VIC, Australia e-mail: antti.kauppinen@rmit.edu.au

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019

V Ratten et al (eds.), Subsistence Entrepreneurship, Contributions to Management

Science, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-11542-5_2

7

activities that result in the discovery of an opportunity might happen accidentally(cf Kirzner1997), for example, as a result of a person having nothing else to do(Martello1996) The prior research recognises that opportunity discovery is often aserendipitous process and that its domains are (1) the prior knowledge of the sector’sproducts, (2) contingency (i.e a lucky accident where the discovery occurs), and(3) an active search for opportunities (Dew2009) In this chapter, alongside indi-vidual notions from the prior research (e.g Görling and Rehn2008), I problematisethe concept of an active search always being one of the domains of a serendipitousopportunity discovery I remove the active search domain from the serendipitymodel (Dew2009), explore the driving forces of passivity, and show empiricallyhow this assumption changes the current understanding The current exploration ofexamples of passivity opens up a new dimension in the fields of subsistence andtransformational entrepreneurship, because traditionally passivity has a connotation

of something not done or not started, which is the opposite to one of the requirements

of entrepreneurship (i.e an active search) (Minniti2008)

This chapter examines opportunities in which entrepreneurs apply the methodfrom subsistence entrepreneurship, that is, generating subsistence income (Schoar

2010) I show interview examples (two software developers, one mobile phoneapplication and game developer, and one dating consultant) that were parts of mydeviant case study material [i.e a study, which has a target to present a surprise(Seawright and Gerring2008)] In those examples, discovery of an opportunity is notonly associated with entrepreneurs’ profit-seeking ambitions (compare with Rattenand Jones2019), but in contrast, the opportunity discovery activities reported howentrepreneurs develop a transformational effect through their products or serviceswhile creating profits for themselves (compare with Viswanathan et al.2014) Thecommon denominator of those examples (i.e the criteria determining they wereselected as deviant, surprise-inducing cases) was that they resulted from serendipityand as a consequence of their discovers’ passivity rather than activity The primaryantecedent of this passivity was frustration, which originated in internal tensionsrelating to the entrepreneurs’ lives This finding as a part of the subsistence andtransformational entrepreneurship notion might offer some interesting avenues forfuture research on the topic to explore

This chapter is structured as follows First, it reports on notions on an individual’spassivity suggested in prior literature; doing so involves examining the antecedents

of passivity and also the discovery of serendipitous opportunity Second, I willexplain the data I collected during a deviant case study in Finland and Denmark It

is important to note that I call the participants in this studyfirm founders (although inprior research, such individuals might be called entrepreneurs), because that is theexact term that they used themselves in interviews Using the exact same wording is

a critical form of grounded theory-based research and narrative coding, which I used

in this study Third, in this chapter, I will explain those methodological procedures.Fourth, I will explore the details of the categories, which emerged from the interviewdata Fifth, I will conclude the chapter by discussing how thefindings might offerinsights useful to the literature on subsistence and transformational entrepreneurship

I will also discuss the limitations of this study and directions for the future research

In this chapter, I develop the current understanding on serendipity by removingthe active search domain from it, attach the passivity element into it, explore thedriving forces of this passivity, and energise this analysis with a sample ofinterview data The field in general primarily considers successful opportunitydiscoverers as active and passionate people, who want to discover opportunities intheir sector (Cardon et al 2009) Because this assumption of activity being acritical force of discovering an opportunity contradicts some notions from thefield—for example, Görling and Rehn (2008), who argued that passivity could

be the force involved—this chapter clarifies the reasons for this fragmentation andoffers empirical examples, in which an opportunity was discovered serendipi-tously One of the newest research results in the field suggested that gestationactivities of those who were discovering opportunities did not contribute to theirfirms’ subsequent performance (Arenius et al.2017) This surprisingfinding gives

a boost to the approach, which might clarify the reasons why activity does notalways lead to success, even if one might assume otherwise

One of the additional reasons why activities are considered so important forentrepreneurship is the theory on affect For example, Foo et al (2009) explainedthat positive and negative emotions that entrepreneurs experience strengthen theirnew venture creation efforts In a similar vein, Wolfe and Shepherd (2013b) foundthat afirm’s improved profitability, which in many cases is a result of someone’sdeliberate action (Cardon et al.2009), magnifies the positive effect between positive/negative emotions and performance in entrepreneurship-related topics (Wolfe andShepherd2013a) Because those effects suggested earlier in this chapter are derivedfrom samples, which try to generalise the effects and show trends rather than details,

I used the opposite approach, which entails showing outliers Because my target isnot to generalise and relate how these effects would function similarly in everyempirical context, I do not offer a model to be tested but instead frame the concen-tration of the empirical examples around the topics of entrepreneurs’ passivity and

Firm Founders ’ Passivity as a Source of Serendipitous Opportunity Discovery 9

serendipities that are interesting outliers in thefields of subsistence and tional entrepreneurship.

transforma-3 Deviant Case Study Examples from Interviews

I collected the material for a deviant case study from Finland and Denmark Thiscase study follows the deviant case study logic, because in this case study form aresearcher tries tofind surprises or outliers (such as those related to firm founders’passivity instead of activity as a driver of serendipitously discovered opportunities)instead of trying to generalise the findings empirically (Seawright and Gerring

2008) In this chapter, I report on the interview material of that deviant case study

My target is to offer a theoretical generalisation of the topic (i.e passivity), animplication that can potentially provide a boundary condition (see Strauss andCorbin 1990) for the prior research on serendipitous opportunity discovery Thecase study material offers descriptions of seemingly passivefirm founders who haddiscovered a transformational opportunity [one intended to change the lives of endusers (Miller and Collier 2010)], for their businesses serendipitously Below, Ibriefly describe the firms and their founders’ backgrounds

The first firm is based in Denmark, but it employs people all over the world,because it applies an open source technology The founder of this firm startedenvisioning his business after he broke his back and he was required to stop work.During his recuperation, because he had nothing else to do, he began to think of abusiness he could establish Thisfirm founder is a lawyer This firm runs an onlineapplication for hospitals, which medical doctors use to treat and investigate brainstrokes in order to save patients’ lives The second firm comes from Finland(a partner of the former), and it offers online platforms for computers and mobilephones (e.g the one used for the hospital product) Thefirm founder of this companystarted thinking of starting his own business when he was frustrated having beenfired from his job The idea of starting a business idea in the same sector as hisprevious employer appealed in that it offered a potential form of revenge on that pastemployer Thisfirm founder gained a master’s degree in computer science.The owner of the third firm is Danish and studied in a famous businessprogramme (Bachelor’s level) at a Danish business school His business runs in an

office in Copenhagen, and offerings include mobile phone applications and games.Thisfirm founder got the idea for his company serendipitously at a time when he wasbored at a lecture This firm founder claims that these products make their users’lives happier The founder of the fourth firm is of African origin but lives inDenmark, and his firm offers dating consultancy services for men (e.g books,seminars, and personal coaching) to help its customers find a partner His ideacame into his mind after his girlfriend left him and he wanted to help other men tosucceed in their relationships (especially during the phase of building of theirrelationships) This founder has no further education qualification

4 Methods

I followed Strauss and Corbin’s (1990) grounded theory method to collect this deviantcase study data Of this material, two open interviews from fourfirms are explored inthis chapter The target of this case study was to try tofind a specific construct from reallife: a driving force for passivity that might result in a serendipitous opportunitydiscovery Before starting to analyse this data, a professional transcriber transcribedthis data (530 minutes of talk in total) verbatim In the analysis, I applied open(i.e.finding the critical categories), axial (i.e comparing the categories), and selectivecodings (i.e reorganising the categories tofind the grand category) (Corbin and Strauss

1990; Strauss and Corbin 1990) In line with this coding method applied in theentrepreneurship field (e.g Singh et al 2015), my aim was to concentrate not onindividuals but on categories that emerge from the data That is why I removed theidentifiers to each interviewee in order to concentrate on analysing narrative content.First, when analysing the interviews, I coded the opportunity narratives: thesituations which occurred because of serendipity (i.e the open coding) A crucialindividual-level factor, which was often encapsulated with those opportunity situa-tions, wasfirm founders’ frustration (examples in Table1) Second, I reorganisedthose categories to encompass descriptions of how firm founders spoke of theiropportunities occurring because of serendipity (including as a result of frustration) inaccordance with their analysed reasons (i.e the axial coding) I found that theprimary reason for serendipities and their antecedents (frustration) was that thesefirm founders were passive instead of active Third, I coded the grand category toexplore the driving forces of those reasons for serendipity, frustration, and passivity(i.e the selective coding) The most important driving force turned out to be aninternal tension that thesefirm founders experienced in relation to their previous orcurrent work The next chapter offers examples of those descriptions

5 Internal Tension Generating Positively Channelled

Passivity

When analysing the interview data from the deviant case study conducted in Finlandand Denmark, two common basic categories of serendipity emerged from the opencoding Those two categories (i.e.firm founders’ frustration types) are explored inTable1with examples from interviews In fact, when thefirm founders explained whythey discovered some of their opportunities by chance, they related how frustratedthey were particularly in two different areas—business life and higher education (thecategories emerging from the open coding)

These two frustration types reported above made the focalfirm founders passive indifferent forms: passivity towards what is traditionally expected at work (e.g be a goodemployee and follow your leader) and passivity towards what is traditionally expected to

be true (e.g theory learned at business school) The futurefirm founders’ bad ences meant they did not want to participate in those institutions at all, which led them to

experi-Firm Founders ’ Passivity as a Source of Serendipitous Opportunity Discovery 11

Table 1 The categories emerging out of codings

Categories from the open coding

Categories from the axial coding

Grand category from the selective coding Frustration of working for another firm,

examples:

“I woke up and I quite a bitch took a

cigarette and lit up You know

every-thing was down down down So, I decided

that I wanted to go out and find a way out

from this and how to become more

suc-cessful ”

“I want to work alone I found it better,

because this is not for like everybody If a

guy comes into this, there are three things.

First, he has to feel that nobody is doing

this on the field The third part, he has to

make a turnaround And the last part that

is that he has to be able to be trained He

has to be able to take the learning from his

mind to another person So, it ’s a hard

process and I prefer to work alone ”

“I simply broke my back, as a little

per-sonal thing and that was session for my

stuff We had to carry our people that I

had problem with my back and so I had to

be at home Then after half a year, actually

I had to quit my work, I couldn ’t work.

And that time, actually, I take care of the

pains so was working a lot with the

soft-ware I mean it was kind of it was my job

was a course of buying a software and at

home I could do nothing, but just being

myself and try find out what was

happen-ing at the other side of the table so to

speak ”

“He saw this way of handling things as a

simple way Because it is not actually a

job contract, but also it could a simple

client contract with this my side contract

consultancy was about three pages It ’s

extremely simple also And he liked that

approach, I mean, he told why not to try

another project He had this, we arranged

a meeting in Stockholm on a day I was

working there with the project my side

and then I met this sits people, I mean

those brain project people and we had a

talk and came up with some, yeah, initial

ideas of how much it costs to take the core

system, this SAS-based system that I

mean what would be the percent of the

costs and some competition And then we

Passivity towards what is traditionally expected at work (e.g to follow one ’s leader) Alternative solutions (a product or service for

an own business):

(1) mobile phone cations, (2) software for hospitals, (3) platforms for computers and mobile phones, and (4) dating consultancy

appli-Internal tension in a person ’s mind which triggered those firm founders to actually start their entrepreneurship journey and which resulted in their seren- dipitous opportunity discoveries (i.e an acti- vation of their passivity

in thoughts originating

in their frustrations)

(continued)

explore personal ways to discover alternative opportunities; those ideas became thefoundations of their businesses (i.e the categories emerging out of axial coding).This significant power of being frustrated (found in the categories emerging duringopen coding)flowing from trying to find alternative opportunities (found and clarifiedduring the axial coding) seemed to be the most important reason why these firmfounders considered starting their own businesses instead of working for someoneelse Thus, after analysing the reasons for that negatively oriented power of ignoring theexisting institutions (e.g other employers and business schools) and trying to act upon

Table 1 (continued)

Categories from the open coding

Categories from the axial coding

Grand category from the selective coding just got a meeting and they came back a

few months later and wanted to take a new

meeting in Stockholm and where they

really wanted to get into the details and

how to do this brain project ”

Frustration against to higher education,

examples:

“I always wanted to start a company I just

looked for the right opportunity I ’ve

never been hired I ’ve been, yeah I had

one paying job that hand in your tax card

and everything Otherwise, I always had

my own company, that would then

invoice ”

“What is behind the numbers? Can I trust

these numbers you learn in school? How

do I, what does a number mean? How do

you analyse reports, source criticism.

Many people just don ’t think, when they

see 37 percent increase in something.

They think, “oh fuck that’s a lot” but, if

that ’s from 1 to 1.37 units, that’s not a lot.

That ’s nothing”

“There is no one reason how one finds an

idea It cannot be found from statistics or

theory, because those predict that

gener-ally this is going to happen in companies.

For us it has always been a result of many

people ’s discussions and a result of many

factors ”

“After hours it is passive what we do We

cannot close the work, and the

activity-level of being able to react is enough,

because then the serendipities bring those

opportunities and not the theory I think

it ’s about personalities and a wish to

develop the company ”

Passivity towards what

it traditionally expected

to be true (e.g theory leaned in the school) Alternative solutions (a product or service for

an own business):

(1) mobile phone cations, (2) software for hospitals, (3) platforms for computers and mobile phones, and (4) dating consultancy

appli-Source: Author ’s own table

Firm Founders ’ Passivity as a Source of Serendipitous Opportunity Discovery 13

other chances, it turned out that each of thosefirm founders experienced an internaltension (i.e the grand category emerging out from the selective coding) (see Table1).This internal tension can be characterised as a contraction in a person’s mind as arealisation that it would be wise to follow what workplace leaders or staff at educationinstitutions say, but they did not want to do so.

I controlled for potential bias related to education level in the data by includingonefirm founder without any further education beyond basic schooling However,this person offered similar narratives to otherfirm founders, so the level of educationdid not change the insights from the grand narrative The grand narrative (i.e theinternal tension in a person’s mind) can be related to stress in the literature onindividual psychology (Mark et al.2008)

Studying those internal tension levels (i.e the grand category emerging from theselective coding) more precisely would require an in-depth case study Mark et al.(2008) suggested that stress can be a reason for such internal tension in a person’smind and that this stress might, for example, be caused by interruptions at work Acase study, which would clarify the elements (e.g internal tensions in one’s mind,interruptions at work, and stress), might require observation data (see Czarniawska

2008), which was unfortunately not available to this research because the viewees could not offer any other data Given one of the crucial components of acase study method is that a researcher uses multiple data sources (Eisenhardt1989);the interview-based analysis presented here offers a potential approach for futurescholars This notion does, however, offer some interesting insights into passivityand its potential to support serendipitous opportunity discovery The driving force ofthis passivity includedfirm founders’ frustration with business life and educationalinstitutions in general, alternative solutions to organise their work (their own busi-ness ideas), and internal tensions in their minds (which can be a result of stress andinterruptions at work) These insights can be interesting, because the prior researchhas primarily considered entrepreneurs as active individuals (see Cardon et al.2009)

inter-6 Discussion and Conclusions

This chapter offers a new perspective on the understanding of serendipitous nity discovery as a part of subsistence and transformational entrepreneurship litera-tures I offered insights from my deviant case study that explored the reasons whysome passivity can generate a serendipitous opportunity discovery I removed theactive search domain from the prior model by Dew (2009) and then attached thepassivity element into it In the grounded theory analysis, it turned out that surprisinglypassivity, instead of an active search (compare with Arenius et al.2017), was theprimary source of opportunity discovery in these serendipity cases, despite the priorresearch on serendipity (e.g Dew2009; Merrilees et al.1998; Reynolds2005) and onopportunities (e.g Kirzner1997; Shane and Venkataraman2000; Venkataraman et al

opportu-2012) suggesting otherwise

The exploration of cases in this study shows that opportunity discoveries tookplace, because the focalfirm founders were not interested in working for any single

existingfirm (suggesting passivity) but created their own firms More precisely, theybuilt their businesses because their passivity was transformed into an active moodthrough their frustration about educational and business organisations (of which theywere a part and which were applied in their previous workplaces) These two forms offrustration proved to be results of the focalfirm founders’ wishes to control their ownwork instead of being controlled by someone else (e.g a boss) Being controlled wasone of the reasons that made them passive towards any work at existingfirms andtowards any studying efforts at higher-education institutions Thus, being passivewas a result of their experiencing internal tensions in their minds between what theyshould do and what they wanted to do They used this internal tension as an excuse toconvince themselves to stop work and studies and start their own businesses Futureresearch could extend the analysis of those internal tensions to encompass the stressperspective, for example Doing so would align with the suggestion of Mark et al.(2008) that one’s internal tensions in mind as well as interruptions at work can causestress: one of the potential triggers for people starting businesses.

It is critical to note that thesefirm founders, unlike those identified in the priorresearch (e.g Cardon et al.2009; Venkataraman et al 2012), did not grow theirbusinesses because of a wish to be active society members (firm founders) butbecause they wanted to avoid of being controlled by anyone else who they associatedwith causing them frustration (and thus: passivity) In fact, one of the intervieweesstated the following strong opinion when talking about chances to grow a business:

No We don ’t want No Not 100 employees Not more than 30 Also, the products that we build target automation And recurring revenues, a monthly revenue We do not build products that would require a large sales department Because we don ’t want many people.

We want, our products are targeted, the first target is 10,000 users that will pay us each month for a product.

This chapter extends the serendipitous opportunity discovery perspectives byoffering a view in which a person’s passivity might produce opportunities for wealthgeneration and well-being, a critical aspect of subsistence and transformationalentrepreneurship literatures (see Miller and Collier 2010) The chapter discussedthese ideas further and offered two forms of frustration (about business organisationsand education institutions) as sources of generative passivity and suggests that thesepassivity elements can trigger positive outcomes, such as opportunity discoverythrough correctly handled psychological effects of self-control over one’s internaltensions (compare with Blakemore et al.2000; Frith et al.2000)

References

Arenius P, Engel Y, Klyver K (2017) No particular action needed? A necessary condition analysis

of gestation activities and firm emergence J Bus Ventur 8:87–92

Blakemore S-J, Smith J, Steel R, Johnstone EC, Frith CD (2000) The perception of self-produced sensory stimuli in patients with auditory hallucinations and passivity experiences: evidence for a breakdown in self-monitoring Psychol Med 30:1131 –1139

Cardon MS, Wincent J, Singh J, Drnovsek V (2009) The nature and experience of entrepreneurial passion Acad Manage Rev 34:511 –532

Firm Founders ’ Passivity as a Source of Serendipitous Opportunity Discovery 15

Corbin J, Strauss A (1990) Grounded theory research: procedures, canons, and evaluative criteria Qual Sociol 13(1):3 –21

Czarniawska B (2008) Organizing: how to study and how to write about it Qual Res Org Manage 3 (1):4 –20

Dew N (2009) Serendipity in entrepreneurship Org Stud 30(7):735 –753

Eisenhardt KM (1989) Building theories from case study research Acad Manag Rev 14(4):532 – 550

Foo M-D, Uy MA, Baron RA (2009) How do feelings in fluence effort? An empirical study of entrepreneurs ’ affect and venture effort J Appl Psychol 94(4):1086–1094

Frith CD, Blakemore S-J, Wolpert DM (2000) Explaining the symptoms of schizophrenia: malities in the awareness of action Brain Res Rev 31:357 –363

abnor-Görling S, Rehn A (2008) Accidental ventures – a materialist reading of opportunity and neurial potential Scand J Manage 24(2):94 –102

entrepre-Kirzner I (1997) Entrepreneurial discovery and the competitive market process: an Austrian approach J Econ Lit 35(1):60 –85

Mark G, Gudith D, Klocke U (2008) The cost of interrupted work: more speed and stress Conference proceedings of SIGCHI 2008 conference on human factors in computing systems, Florence, Italy, April 5th to 8th 2008, pp 107 –110

Martello WE (1996) Developing creative business insights: serendipity and its potential in preneurship Entrep Reg Dev 6(3):239 –258

entre-Merrilees B, Miller D, Tiessen J (1998) Serendipity, leverage and the process of entrepreneurial internationalization Small Enterp Res 6(2):3 –11

Miller RA, Collier EW (2010) Rede fining entrepreneurship: a virtues and values perspective J Leadersh Account Ethics 8(2):80 –89

Minniti M (2008) The role of government policy on entrepreneurial activity: productive, unproductive, or destructive Entrep Theory Pract 32(5):779 –790

Ratten V, Jones P (2019) Transformational entrepreneurship Routledge Frontiers of Business Management/Routledge, London/New York

Reynolds PD (2005) Understanding business creation: serendipity and scope in two decades of business creation studies Small Bus Econ 24(4):359 –364

Schoar A (2010) The divide between subsistence and transformational entrepreneurship Innov Policy Econ 10:57 –81

Seawright J, Gerring J (2008) Case selection techniques in case study research: a menu of qualitative and quantitative options Polit Res Q 61(2):294 –308

Shane S, Venkataraman S (2000) The promise of entrepreneurship as a field of research Acad Manage Rev 25(1):217 –226

Singh S, Corner PD, Pavlovich K (2015) Failed, not finished: a narrative approach to understanding venture failure stigmatization J Bus Ventur 30(1):150 –166

Strauss A, Corbin J (1990) Basics of grounded theory methods Sage, Beverly Hills

Styhre A (2006) Organization creativity and the empiricist image of novelty Creat Innov Manage 15(2):143 –149

Venkataraman S, Sarasvathy SD, Dew N, Forster WR (2012) Re flections on the 2010 AMR decade award: whither the promise? Moving forward with entrepreneurship as a science of the arti ficial Acad Manage Rev 37(1):21 –33

Viswanathan M, Echambadi R, Venugopal S, Sridharan S (2014) Subsistence entrepreneurship, value creation, and community exchange systems: a social capital explanation J Macromark 34 (2):213 –226

Wolfe MT, Shepherd DA (2013a) “Bouncing back” from a loss: entrepreneurial orientation, emotions, and failure narratives Entrep Theory Pract 37(4):1 –26

Wolfe MT, Shepherd DA (2013b) What do you have to say about that? Performance events and narratives ’ positive and negative emotional content Entrep Theory Pract 37(6):1–31

Commonomics: Rhetoric and Reality

of the African Growth Tragedy

Jerry Kolo, Nnamdi O Madichie, and Chris H Mbah

Abstract This exploratory study addresses the question of a feasible complementaryeconomic model for the teeming population in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) that lives atthe subsistence level The study rationalized the contention that SSA is in a develop-ment straitjacket and its much-touted economic rise is more rhetoric than reality.Postmodern Keynesian economics has failed in most of SSA; therefore, an economicparadigm shift is advocated toward“commonomics.” The study draws upon docu-mentary evidence to posit that SSA’s rise is trumpeted by international organizations,nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), and SSA governments for various “self-serving” reasons adduced in the study Despite this purported rise, in 2018, 17 of theworld’s 20 least competitive economies are in SSA; the middle class is rapidlydisappearing; corruption has become a means of livelihood across all socioeconomicclasses; and the youth arefleeing their countries, as exemplified by the treacheroustransatlantic crossings into Europe In SSA’s quandary, Africans who are nostalgicabout the“good old days” opine that, until the postcolonial era, SSA’s resource baseenabled people to meet their basic needs cost-effectively and sustainably and that theconsumerism and greed that typify the postmodern era of Keynesian economics werenonissues in traditional SSA contexts In these societies, commonomics, the termused for the model prescribed in this study, was the economic ideology and model.Commonomics aims to meet people’s basic needs through collaborative grassrootsinitiatives, where the inputs and outputs of production, distribution, and consumption

of goods and services are initiated, governed, managed, and sustained by grassrootscitizens Guidelines for implementing commonomics are outlined in the study

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019

V Ratten et al (eds.), Subsistence Entrepreneurship, Contributions to Management

Science, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-11542-5_3

17

1 Introduction

The narrative of Africa’s economic rise has never gained traction and, as this studycontends, the perfunctory evidence of the rise is inconsistent with the negativeeconomic and quality of life indicators across the continent In a review of the

2018, the latest Global Competitiveness Report published by the World EconomicForum, Anoba (2018) noted that“17 of the 20 least competitive economies in theworld are in Africa.” Not surprisingly, the various reasons he identified for SSA’sretarded competitiveness border mostly on the dictates of classical Western eco-nomic models Similarly, in an incisive review of the 2018 Ibrahim Index of AfricanGovernance (IIAG), Leteane (2018) alluded to thefinding in the report that “thecontinent’s economic growth over the last decade has failed to translate intoprogress in Sustainable Economic Opportunity Africa’s GDP has grown by 39.7%over the same period; almost half (43.2%) of Africa’s citizens live in one of the

25 countries where Sustainable Economic Opportunity has declined in the last

10 years.” Also worrisome among the findings of the Index report are the decline

in education and security across the continent, two critical factors for both foreigninvestment and domestic entrepreneurship

This study opines that ineffective national and international macroeconomicinitiatives to fight abject poverty in Africa through classical Western economicmodels beg for alternative and complementary paradigms of growth and develop-ment, especially for the masses of the continent who live at the subsistence level andcurrently contribute little or nothing to the global economy Similar views and for aparadigm shift have been expressed for economies around the world where more andmore people are being marginalized and impoverished by the global economy One

of the world’s foremost development aid agencies and advocates, OXFAM (n.d.), iscurrently on a global campaign that urges“governments to listen to ordinary peopleand choose to build an economy that works for everyone, not just the fortunate few.”UNDP (2011: 2) submitted that “people must be at the center of human develop-ment, both as beneficiaries and as drivers, as individuals and in groups People must

be empowered with the tools and knowledge to build their own communities, statesand nations.” Eisler (2009) argued that“rather than trying to just patch up a systemthat isn’t working, let’s use our economic crisis to work for a system that really meetshuman needs.” Brower (2013) advanced what he called“ten smart responses you canuse when people tell you there’s no alternative to the capitalism that’s cooking theplanet.” It is in the context of the growing need and calls for a shift in Africa’seconomic development paradigm that this study proposes “commonomics” as amodel, complementary to extant classical economic models, as a means to liftgrassroots African from the grinding poverty that has a choke hold on the continent.The concept of commonomics is reviewed further later in the study

This study formulates a conceptual framework for implementing commonomicswithin the extant structures of governance in SSA It rationalizes the contention thatSSA is in a development straitjacket and its much-touted economic rise is moremiasma than reality Burdened by numerous problems, including the so-called

resource curse (Auty1994), it seems ever more persuasive to argue that postmodernKeynesian economics has been ineffective in SSA; therefore, a paradigm tilt isadvocated in this study toward“commonomics.”

2 Literature Review

There is an extensive and insightful pool of literature on the key concepts thatunderpin this study Briefly reviewed below are three of these concepts, namely,Africa Rising, African growth tragedy, and commonomics

2.1 Africa Rising Narratives

Africa Rising as a phrase and concept emerged toward the end of thefirst decade ofthe twenty-first century, as what this study labels nạve and premature celebrations ofobservations of a small bump in Africa’s economic growth rate began around theworld As Kayizzi-Mugerwa et al (2014) noted,“Africa’s growth resurgence duringthe past decade and its persistence have taken many watchers of the continent bysurprise The international media have been busy coining labels to match thisunexpected turn of fortune—‘Africa rising’ being the commonest and most mislead-ing label to date.” Sarfo (2013) noted that:

Recent high growth rates and increased foreign investment in Africa have given rise to the popular idea that the continent may well be on track to become the next global economic powerhouse This “Africa Rising” narrative has been most prominently presented in recent cover stories by TIME Magazine and The Economist Yet both publications are wrong in their analysis of Africa ’s developmental prospects—and the reasons they’re wrong speak volumes about the problematic way national economic development has come to be under- stood in the age of globalization.

The global financial crisis of 2008 did not deter adherents of what was fastbecoming the myth of Africa Rising Even way into the second decade of thecentury, Western media continued project this myth, for example, CNN’s article byPage (2015), titled“326 billion reasons Africa is on the move.” On these adherents,this paper conjectures that the myth continued to be perpetuated by internationalorganizations, such as the IMF and World Bank, as a“psychological therapy” forSSA, while most nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) accentuated the rise tojustify their work and secure more local and international grants Yet, most SSAgovernments used the growth statistics to their advantage to cover up for failedgovernance This leadership failure has been substantiated time and again bycredible analytical sources on governance in Africa, such as the Mo IbrahimIndex of African Governance (Mo Ibrahim Foundation 2018) and TransparencyInternational

2.2 Counterpoints on Africa Rising

Hardly had the euphoria over Africa’s purported economic rise sunk in when theglobal economic crisis and recession of 2008 hit This quickly dampened, but for afew hardened cheerleaders on the rise, the euphoria and enthusiasm around the worldabout Africa’s prospects as the world’s emerging economic growth frontier In light

of the impacts of the global crisis, questions about the sustainability of the rise orgrowth were being raised as part of the discourse For example, Johnson (2015), inthe Financial Times, highlighted Africa’s growth in the context of the globalfinancial slowdown and stated that the “slowdown calls ‘Africa rising’ narrativeinto question.” Also, reviewing a research that examined the traction or sustainabil-ity of economic growth in Rwanda, the so-called Africa’s Singapore and economicwonder, Kopf (2017) opined that the country’s growth may, in the long run, be amirage, in light of the authoritarian and manipulative political system in the country.Like Rwanda, the case of Africa at large was one in which, as observed by Fabricius(2015), macroeconomic figures led, mistakenly, to the “Africa Rising” euphoria,causing some to wonder if the Rising is, instead,“Africa Uprising.”

It is important to note that several African development scholars were also clear inoffering counterviews to the myth of Africa Rising The views expressed by the likes

of Kayizzi-Mugerwa et al (2014) and Sarfo (2013) were vivid cautionary tions on the encomiums that greeted the short-lived surge in economic growth inAfrica Kayizzi-Mugerwa et al (2014) questioned the methodology used inhighlighting success stories about SSA According to him,“given Africa’s atrociousdata quality we cannot know for sure whether Africa is indeed‘rising’ or by howmuch Moreover, that even if Africa was rising, we are not able to tell how this isimpacting the general welfare of its population.” This view supports an earlierobservation by Wadongo (2014) that“much of the overhyped economic growth isfueled by the exploitation of gas reserves, investment in the telecommunicationsindustry, and infrastructure development Most of the profits and benefits from thisgrowth go into the pockets of investors, shareholders, and government officials.” Hereferenced evidence of an increasing wealth gap in SSA in particular, and thecontinent in general, where just ten people own the same wealth as half of thecontinent Concluding on a terse note, he submitted that“despite booming econo-mies, the“middle class” is still in poverty,” adding that “just because some Africaneconomies are recording annual growth rates of more than 6% does not mean that thelives of average citizens are necessarily improving apace; wealth disparity is risingeven faster.”

illustra-In his counterview, John Ashbourne (2016), African economist at Capital nomics described Africa’s rise as “irrational optimism,” arguing that “people mis-understood” the concept.”1

Eco-He observed that Africa’s rise “was always going to be a

1 According to Thompson ( 2016 ), “In 2016 John Ashbourne, African economist at Capital nomics, told the FT that people misunderstood the concept of Africa Rising and is critical of the

Eco-‘irrational optimism’ surrounding the weight of expectation for African countries to become the next Denmark or Malaysia ”

very difficult and lengthy process” and that “the current slowdown should be foodfor thought for adherents of the Africa rising concept, which has been‘overplayed’.”

2.3 African Growth Tragedy

The notion or concept of“African growth tragedy” first emerged when Easterly andLevine (1997: 1203) noted that “Africa’s economy since 1960 fits the classical

definition of tragedy: potential unfulfilled, with disastrous consequences.Sub-Saharan Africa’s growth tragedy is reflected in painful human scars.” Thistrend has continued well into the 1990s and beyond Commenting on the genesis

of the concept, Kayizzi-Mugerwa et al (2014) pointed out:

During the late 1990s, and amid Africa ’s “darkest hour,” when everything that African governments were trying to do to generate growth and bring economies back on track, including structural adjustment policies, seemed to be failing, researchers in Western academia/development agencies began to refer frequently to Africa ’s “growth tragedy.”

The African growth tragedy concept reverberated in the discourse of Africa’sdevelopment as Africa Rising began to lose steam in the second decade of the twenty-first century Yet, over the decades, underlying the extensive discussions about theAfrican growth tragedy is what this paper deems to be the elusiveness of the sustainedgrowth that Africa and the international community yearn, plan, and collaborate for.Quite disheartening is the evidence that continues to confirm the severity of thechallenges of growth in Africa, such as the poignant findings of the IIAG.Also, reviewing the 2018 Global Competitiveness Report by the World EconomicForum, Anoba (2018) noted that“out of the 140 countries studied, the highest placedAfrican economy was Mauritius, at 49, and the closest after that was South Africa,which came in at 67 The majority of the ranked countries from the continent languish

in the bottom third The only non-African countries in that category are Venezuela,Haiti, and Yemen.” He added that “this abysmal performance in one of the key reports

on measuring economic progress reiterates the deplorable state Africa’s economyfinds itself in, at least with regard to the recent past.”

While contentions remain about the causes and ways out of the African growthtragedy, the argument and position in this paper are that a paradigm of growth thatfits the realities of the impoverished majority of Africans should be adopted side byside with the Western growth models that have been in place since the colonial eras.The idea is not to supplant the extant with the proposed models but to align them in away that enables impoverished Africans to meet their basic needs throughcommonomics, while the extant macroeconomic model continues to link Africanwith the global market and economy

2.4 Commonomics: A Proposition

Surmising from the vast literature on commonomics and its variants, this paperviews the term as referring to a model of economics that aims to meet people’s basicneeds through collaborative grassroots initiatives, where the inputs and outputs ofproduction, distribution, and consumption of goods and services are initiated,governed, managed, and sustained by grassroots citizens Ownership and/or control

of the means and dividends of production and collective self-reliance are the essence

of commonomics Commonomics bears attributes of various popular or mainstreameconomic models, such as Schumpeterian and Schumacherian economics Forexample, Bunting (2015) noted that “what Schumacher wanted was a people-centered economics because that would, in his view, enable environmental andhuman sustainability It was a radical challenge which, like many of the ideas ofthe late 1960s and early 1970s (feminism is another example), were graduallyadopted and distorted by the ongoing voracious expansion of consumer capitalism.”The other models with which commonomics shares attributes include the neweconomy (Korten2014), circular economy (Esposito et al.2018), sharing economy(Godelnik2017), caring economy (Eisler2009), inclusive capitalism (Doane2015;Boleat 2014), and what the UN Development Program dubbed people-orienteddevelopment in the 1980s In essence, commonomics as an economic concept andmodel is neither new nor abstract Korten (2014) stated that“the ideas are not new.Some are ancient Many have been advocated for years in places deeply affected

by poverty, pollution, and racism What’s changed is that so many communitiesare coming together under a common umbrella, forming new alliances and lifting

up new messengers.”

In both discourse and practice, commonomics, like its variants, is gaining ents all over the world For example, Korten (2014) noted that“the New EconomyWorking Group, based at the Institute for Policy Studies (est in 1963 in DC), formedjust 6 years ago in 2009 The group was one of thefirst to adopt the term “NewEconomy” to describe an economy that supports ecological balance, shared prosper-ity, and deep democracy.” He noted further that, in the USA, commonomics, alsocalled the New Economy, is being embraced and implemented in communities acrossthe country, while in Europe and Asia, the term“inclusive capitalism” is widely used

adher-It must be reiterated that at the heart of commonomics is what accounts for astrong, self-reliant, and sustainable local economy, one which enables people tomeet their basic needs by wresting power from what Korten (1999) described asfaceless and greedy corporations and multinationals Commonomics makes peoplethe centerpiece of growth and development policies and plans This view has beenechoed nationally and internationally through the years as the most appropriatepolicy and philosophy for Africa’s development in particular and global sustainabledevelopment in general For example, the United Nations Development Program(UNDP) stated:

We believe strongly that people ’s well-being and their quality of life is the most important measure of whether ‘development’ is successful Thus, people must be at the center of

human development, both as bene ficiaries and as drivers, as individuals and in groups People must be empowered with the tools and knowledge to build their own communities, states and nations.

Echoing the UNDP’s view, Adesina (2018), president of African DevelopmentBank, stated that“at the end of the day development is about people We must putpeople at the very heart of development.” Wadongo (2014) argued that:

Instead of becoming complacent about how the “Africa rising” narrative will ultimately lift

up the region, we should be “Afro-realistic” about the challenges faced by the region and focus on developing practical solutions to meeting these challenges Ultimately, it is the people, not the elite, who must ensure that a rising Africa, like the proverbial incoming tide, will raise all their boats, create jobs for the extremely high unemployed youth, and lift millions of out poverty into real middle class ”

The UNDP was unequivocal when it stated that“development can only thrivewhen there is investment in people and institutions and where governments areresponsive and accountable to their citizens.” The paper argues that, without theparadigm shift in the extant economic model in SSA, and coupled with the risks ofconsumerism, population explosion, technological advances, and exploits, and thelack of consensus about what constitutes sustainable development, SSA will plungefurther into the abyss of underdevelopment The need and search for feasible andcontextual economic models for SSA are exemplified by proposals by Africandevelopment scholars such as Madichie (2003) and his idea of“Afronomics,” TonyElemelu and his idea of“Africapitalism” (Onyibe2017); the idea of“afro-realism”(allafrica.com2018; Wadongo2014), and entrepreneurs such as Jim Ovia (Onyibe

2018) Commonomics, as advocated in this paper, is predicated on the seven stepsprescribed by advocates of the new economy movement who, as Korten (2014)observed,“are converging regarding the actions to take.” The steps below are used

in this paper to propose an implementation framework within the existing structures

of government in SSA We refer to these as the seven steps toward commonomics(ethos of shared prosperity):

• Place ownership in the hands of real people, not globalized corporations

• Localize control of food, energy, land, housing, and retail

• Advance cooperative enterprises where workers share in profits and making

decision-• Shift from fossil fuels to renewables and from destructive to regenerativeagriculture

• Expand credit unions, community banks, and public banks so that finance benefitscommunities rather than Wall Street

• Reform trade rules to reduce the power of global corporations and enable localeconomies toflourish

• Adopt a worldview that we humans are part of the ecosystem and our economymust work with nature rather than against it

3 Discussion

In proposing a tilt from the classical macroeconomic model to commonomics as aparallel economic model for Africa, this paper sides with the cautionary views,critics, and even skeptics of the Africa Rising narrative One such view is by Sarfo(2013), who opined that the narrative“is only half of the truth of Africa.” Another isKazeem (2018a,b,c), who used the Global Competitiveness Index report to reflect

on the Africa Rising narrative, stating that“Africa’s economies are still too far offfulfilling the ‘Africa rising’ narrative.” He noted that, on the global index, “while theglobal median score is 60, the median in sub-Saharan Africa (45.2) is the lowest forall the regions analyzed.” He summed up by stating that “African economies willrequire significant work to compete at on global scale.” Besides this study’s criticalposition on the narrative, the study deems ongoing discussions of both the rising andthe tragedy to be fueled and tainted by the following four main reasons

Firstly, the discourse fails to, or seems silent on, the stark distinction betweengrowth and development Almost frequently, development, which this study deems

to be the qualitative and distributive aspects of progress or advancement, is sumed under, or used interchangeably with, growth, which is the quantitative andallocative aspects of progress (Kolo et al.2016; Madichie2002,2007) As noted inthe IIAG report, for example,“the continent’s economic growth over the last decade has failed to translate into progress in Sustainable Economic Opportunity”(Leteane2018) Secondly, even for economic growth, the classical macroeconomicmeasurement indicators used by national and international entities ignore, or areprioritized above, measures about human and psychosocial conditions It is in thislight that Sarfo (2013), while critiquing the media coverages and views on the Africanarrative, opined that the media are wrong in their analysis of Africa’s developmen-tal prospects—and the reasons they’re wrong speak volumes about the problematicway national economic development has come to be understood in the age ofglobalization Thirdly, three leading“trumpeters” of the narrative share a commonself-serving interest: (1) the Western development experts and institutions arepractically removed from the daily experiences of grassroots Africans and, therefore,report only half of the African story that relates to national economicfigures—raw,cooked, and genuine; (2) national leaders, often in cahoots with their Westernadvisors, lenders, and technocrats, eagerly showcase leading economic figures inorder to stay in the favors of the foreign experts, foreign lenders, and investors andfor local political gains; and (3) development and aid advocacy andnongovernmental or philanthropic agencies join in touting misleading economicgrowth statistics for psychological and motivational reasons and sometimes to securemore funding from their donors worldwide Fourthly, thefinal main factor that taintsthe narrative is overzealous scholars and analysts whose gains including coiningnomenclatures that earn them recognition in their fields of research, make themexperts on African development, and earn them consultancy projects on Africandevelopment

sub-On the more pragmatic and empirical level, unassailable evidence exists thatmacroeconomic models are necessary but insufficient to stem the litany of human/psychosocial, environmental, economic, and political challenges paralyzing devel-opment and quality of life for majority of Africans The development literature anddiscourse are littered with evidence of Africa’s growth and development challenges,

as illustrated by the following six cases (Kolo et al.2016)

1 First, on the attractiveness of countries for foreign investment in 2018, Mays(2018) and Teso et al (2018) reviewed major global reports that showed that SSAcountries rate very poorly compared to countries in other developing regions

2 Second, on innovation, Lijadu (2018) reviewed theGlobal Innovation Index 2018reportand noted that worldwide,“of the ten countries with the least success ininnovation, eight were Sub-Saharan African countries.” On an upbeat note, hegleaned from the report that, although“Sub-Saharan Africa has the lowest averagerate of innovation in the world there continue to be improvements in innovation

4 Fourth is Africa’s spiraling foreign debt This, along with population explosion,was among what Dahir et al (2018) described as“some of the issues that are set toface the continent in 2018.” They termed the debt as “Africa’s ticking debt bomb”and viewed Africa’s exploding population as “bursting at the seams.”

5 Fifth is the food crisis or hunger Hendriks et al (2018) reviewed a recent report

by the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization and noted that “for thethird year in a row hunger is rising across the world And the situation isworsening in most regions in Africa Almost 21% of the continent’s population of

1216 billion is undernourished.”

6 Sixth is overall poverty Kazeem (2018a,b,c) reviewed the report by the WorldPoverty Clock on“the country with the most extreme poor people in the world”and noted that seven of the ten top poorest countries are in SSA

The examples of development challenges previewed above are not outliers Thepicture of each of the examples becomes gloomier and disconcerting when put withinthe context of comparable regional data around the world In virtually every com-parative regional data and reports presented by international development agencies,reputable research agencies, leading media outlets worldwide, and even credibleblogs on quality of life and development issues, from political empowerment toinvestment environment, tourism, and happiness, SSA is often missing from thepositive skew of indicators (Kolo et al.2016; Adibe2014; Nwankwo2011; Madichieand Ibeh2002; Madichie and Hinson2013)

What this studyfinds troubling about this picture is the often “skewed” analysis,narrative, and discourse of the root causes of, and appropriate and feasible

ameliorative measures for, the challenges that retard SSA’s development The tive on Africa Rising falls into this category of“half-truth.” Kolo (2017) It obscuresthe need, as advocated in this study, for a paradigm shift in how economic growth anddevelopment are undertaken in SSA As Wadongo (2014) clearly emphasized,“whilethere is no denying that economies are growing rapidly across the continent, this feel-good narrative, risks distorting reality, making it even more difficult to develop andadopt effective policies to truly improve African lives.” Also, commenting on globalpoverty during the 2018“End Poverty Day,” Nilsen (2018) stated quite tersely that“if

narra-we are to have a serious debate about world poverty on End Poverty Day, narra-we have tostart by acknowledging that the global problem of poverty is far more extensive thanWorld Bank rhetoric would have us believe.” He noted that, generally, for thedeveloping countries experiencing the so-called“strong economic growth , thegrowth strategies these countries have practiced create and reproduce poverty.” Theseexamples show that, to a large extent, the failure or ineffectiveness of macroeconomicmodels in SSA is attributable to analyses, discourse, and policy initiatives that eithernaively or inadvertently prioritize growth over development, instead of growthintegrated with development The latter necessitates that people, not exports, serve

as the thrust of public policies and programs

4 Conclusions and Implications

The argument has been made in this study, substantiated with evidence aboutdeclining quality of life indicators, that the extant macroeconomic model in SSA isgrossly ineffective This is vivid for over 75% of Africans who live at the subsistencelevel Not only are conditions dire for this segment of the region, but the middle classthat is supposed to trigger and sustain meaningful development has been virtuallydecimated by the hardships of life The massive waves of illegal immigration bySSA’s middle class have become another global crisis, with inhumane impacts onboth immigrants and citizens in the origin and destination countries This studyventured to advocate commonomics as a parallel economic model to the existingmacroeconomic model Ardent advocates of market capitalism, which is at the heart

of the extant macroeconomic model in SSA, argue strongly that commonomics iscollectivism that destroys individual creativity and subjugates the individual to thetyranny of the collective (Brownstein2018; Carrasco2018)

The view in this study is that the evidence of the ineffectiveness of marketcapitalism in SSA is overwhelming Even in the West where market capitalism hasbeen embraced for centuries, there are growing questions about its sustainability intothe future For example, Korten is optimistic that“as those identifying with the NewEconomy expand, the movement gains power And a wider embrace brings thedanger of cooptation, corporations will be happy to put on a New Economy gloss.” It

is not the position of this study to advocate replacing macroeconomic model withcommonomics Rather, both models would complement each other in addressinglocal and national needs and priorities in SSA, especially as commonomicsfits the

primordial self-reliant and collaborative system of economic development in ruralSSA where most people live Currently, the former is subjugated under the latter, andthis has left the overwhelming majority of Africans impoverished.

Implementation of the model will not require radical or drastic institutional andstructural changes as much as a governance system that reprioritizes policiesand budgeting; shifts decision-making power to the grassroots; and ensures thatthe dividends of development improve peoples’ lives appreciably For example, inagriculture, the main sectors in which most Africans are engaged, while the agenciesresponsible for delivering services to rural farmers would refocus and repurpose, thecurrent trend of declining budgetary allocations to agriculture would simply beunacceptable and illegal under the commonomics model because grassroots citizens,not government bureaucrats, would“control” decisions and policies about agricul-ture In Tanzania, for example, where agriculture accounts for 67% of the laborforce, budget allocation for agriculture in 2018/2019 was 0.52 of the total nationalbudget, steadily declining from the highest it has been at 2.71 in 2010/2011, leading

to pleas and a campaign by the Eastern and Southern Africa Small-Scale FarmersForum (ESAFF) that East African countries target a minimum of 10% of theirbudgets to agriculture (Said2018) Agriculture across the continent has been suffo-cated by lack of funds, making it impossible for Africans to feed themselves andexacerbating the global food crisis (Igwe et al.2018)

Commonomics, as advocated in this study, requires that people’s basic quality oflife needs, not the dictates and demands of foreign markets, must be the cornerstone

of economic growth and development plans Thus far, since independence, Africahas adopted what this exploratory study terms the“hop-step-and-jump” approach,also known as the “leapfrog” approach, to development This has impoverishedmajority of Africans at the grassroots; weakened or decimated the capacity ofdomestic industries and markets to meet local demands for basic goods and services;provided cover for political malfeasance, bureaucratic ineptitude, and entrenchedcorruption in the political and technocratic echelons; and left the entire region at theabyss of underdevelopment

Acknowledgment An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 18th EBES Conference, School of Business Administration, American University of Sharjah, United Arab Emirates,

Adesida O, Karuri-Sebina G (2011) Is Africa the land of the future? Foresight 13(3):3 –6

Adesina AA (2018) Investors ’ bright future in Africa, November 6 Available at: https://www.afdb org/en/news-and-events/investors-bright-future-in-africa-18640/

Adibe J (2014) MINT, re-based GDP and poverty: a commentary on the identity crisis in Africa ’s

“largest” economy Afr J Bus Econ Res 9(1):119–134

Allafrica.com (2018) Africa: few countries drive progress in Africa, October 29 Available at:

https://allafrica.com/stories/201810300098.html

Anoba IB (2018) 17 of the 20 least competitive economies in the world are in Africa Here is why

it ’s not a surprise, October 22 Available at: competitive-economies-in-world-are-in-africa-id9008221.html

https://www.pulse.ng/bi/strategy/17-of-20-least-Ashbourne J (2016) Angola: gradual recovery after a painful adjustment https://www capitaleconomics.com/publications/africa-economics/africa-economics-update/angola-gradual- recovery-after-a-painful-adjustment/

Auty RM (1994) Industrial policy reform in six large newly industrializing countries: the resource curse thesis World Dev 22(1):11 –26

Birdsall N (2007) Do no harm: aid, weak institutions and the missing middle in Africa Dev Policy Rev 25(5):575 –598

Birdsall N, Savedoff WD, Mahgoub A, Vyborny K (2010) Cash on delivery: a new approach to foreign aid CGD Books, London

Blankson C, Owusu-Frempong Y, Mbah CH (2004) An investigation of Ghana ’s tourism ing J Afr Bus 5(2):113 –136

position-Boleat M (2014) Inclusive capitalism: searching for a purpose beyond pro fit, October 24 Available

Bunting M (2015) Small is beautiful – an economic idea that has sadly been forgotten, December

31 Available at: economic-idea

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2011/nov/10/small-is-beautiful-Carrasco JC (2018) The trap of collectivism, November 4 Available at: trap-of-collectivism/

https://fee.org/articles/the-Collier P, Gunning JW (1999) Explaining African economic performance J Econ Lit 37:64 –111 Collier P, Hoef fler A (2009) Testing the neocon agenda: democracy in resource-rich societies Eur Econ Rev 53(3):293 –308

Dahir AL, Kazeem Y, Chutel L, Kuo L (2018) These nine charts tell you what ’s in store for Africa

in 2018, January 3 Available at: bomb-internet-shutdowns-startups-innovation-and-visa-travels/

https://qz.com/africa/1168720/africa-in-2018-ticking-debt-Djankov S, Montalvo J, Reynal-Querol M (2008) The curse of aid J Econ Growth 13(3):169 –194 Doane D (2015) Inclusive capitalism must fairly reward those on the bottom rung of the ladder, December 29 Available at: http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2014/jun/03/ inclusive-capitalism-reward-bottom-rung-ladder-low-paid-jobs-employment

Easterly W (2008) Can the west save Africa? (No w14363) National Bureau of Economic Research

Easterly W, Levine R (1995) Africa ’s growth tragedy World Bank, Washington, DC

Easterly W, Levine R (1997) Africa ’s growth tragedy: policies and ethnic divisions Q J Econ 112 (4):1203 –1250

Eisler R (2009) Building caring economics: beyond capitalism and socialism, October 15 Available at:

socialism

http://www.yesmagazine.org/new-economy/building-caring-economics-beyond-capitalism-and-Enisan AA, Olu fisayo AO (2009) Stock market development and economic growth: evidence from seven Sub-Sahara African countries J Econ Bus 61(2):162 –171

Esposito M, Tse T, Soufani K (2018) Introducing a circular economy: new thinking with new managerial and policy implications Calif Manage Rev 60(3):5 –19

Fabricius P (2015) Africa Rising or Africa Uprising?, November 11 Available at: http://mg.co.za/ article/2015-11-11-africa-rising-or-africa-uprising

Fisher FM, Temin P (1973) Returns to scale in research and development: what does the Schumpeterian hypothesis imply? J Polit Econ 81:56 –70

Gelb A, Meyer CJ, Ramachandran V (2014) Development as diffusion: manufacturing productivity and Sub-Saharan Africa ’s missing middle Center for Global Development Working Paper, 357 Ghura D, Grennes TJ (1993) The real exchange rate and macroeconomic performance in Sub-Saharan Africa J Dev Econ 42(1):155 –174

Godelnik R (2017) What is the value of the sharing economy? The case of Lyft, August 2 Available

Ibbetson R (2018) More than 2,000 migrants have now drowned while crossing the Mediterranean this year – with half of them headed for Italy, November 6 Available at: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/ news/article-6358877/More-2-000-migrants-drowned-crossing-Me.html

Igwe PA, Madichie NO, Newbery R (2018) Determinants of livelihood choices and artisanal neurship in Nigeria Int J Entrep Behav Res https://doi.org/10.1108/IJEBR-02-2018-0102

entrepre-Jeppesen S, Mainguy C (2007) Foreign direct investment in Africa Searching for impact in Mali and South Africa Centre for Business and Development Studies, Denmark

Johnson S (2015) Slowdown calls ‘Africa rising’ narrative into question, October 27 Available at:

implementa-Kayizzi-Mugerwa S, Anyanwu JC, Conceição P (2014) Regional integration in Africa: an duction Afr Dev Rev 26(S1):1 –6

intro-Kazeem Y (2018a) Nigeria has become the poverty capital of the world, June 25 Available at:

https://qz.com/africa/1313380/nigerias-has-the-highest-rate-of-extreme-poverty-globally/

Kazeem Y (2018b) More than half of the world ’s population growth will be in Africa by 2050, June 29 Available at: https://qz.com/africa/1016790/more-than-half-of-the-worlds-population-growth-will- be-in-africa-by-2050/

Kazeem Y (2018c) Africa ’s economies are still too far off fulfilling the “Africa rising” narrative, October 19 Available at: https://qz.com/africa/1428438/global-competitiveness-report-2018- african-economies-rank-low/

Kolo J (2017) From innovation to sustainability: life-cycle polylemmas and strategic initiatives for entrepreneurship in Africa In: Ahmed A (ed) Managing knowledge and innovation for business

sustainability in Africa Palgrave studies of sustainable business in Africa Palgrave Macmillan, Cham, pp 13 –27 https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-41090-6_2

Kolo J, Madichie N, Mbah C (2016) Commonomics: a Panacea for the African growth tragedy in the 21st century Refereed Research Paper presented at the 18th EBES conference, School of Business Administration, American University of Sharjah, United Arab Emirates, 8 –10 Jan Retrieved from

https://www.ebesweb.org/Conferences/Recent/18th-EBES-Conference-U.A.E.aspx

Kopf D (2017) Rwanda ’s growth miracle may be a mirage, August 10 Available at: https://qz.com/ 1050158/rwandas-economic-growth-miracle-may-be-a-mirage/

Korten DC (1999) The failures of Bretton woods Soc Credit 78(1):1 –10

Korten F (2014) The new economy comes of age: 7 steps toward shared prosperity, December 10 Available at: http://www.yesmagazine.org/issues/cities-are-now/new-economy-comes-of-age- fran-korten

Leteane M (2018) Africa improves in wealth creation but not opportunity, October 31 Available at:

http://www.thejournalist.org.za/spotlight/africa-improves-in-wealth-creation-but-not-opportunity

Lijadu K (2018) African countries still lag in global innovation ranking, but there is good news, August

15 Available at: there-is-good-news/

https://qz.com/africa/1355927/africa-still-lags-in-global-innovation-ranking-but-Madichie N (2002) Customs unions theory and the ECOWAS experience Doctoral dissertation, Shef field Hallam University

Madichie N (2003) Afronomics: how relevant is economic theory when ceteris is not paribus? In: Nwankwo S, Montanheiro L, Aiyeku J, Ogbuehi A (eds) Dimensions of African business and development Shef field Hallam University Press, Sheffield, pp 127–137

Madichie N (2007) Better off out? The costs and bene fits of Sub-Saharan Africa’s membership of the world trade organization J Afr Bus 8(1):5 –30

Madichie N, Hinson R (2013) Doing business in Ghana ’s informal sector – Auntie Muni & the

‘Waakye’ Kitchen Afr J Bus Econ Res 8(2/3):39–50

Madichie N, Ibeh KIN (2002) The African incorporated; normalizing the absurdities In: Nwankwo S, Aiyeku J (eds) Dynamics of marketing in African nations Greenwood, Westport,

Mengistu B, Vogel E (2009) Public perceptions of privatization in Ethiopia: a case for public good

or private gain? Int J Public Adm 32(8):681 –703

Migot-Adholla S, Hazell P, Blarel B, Place F (1991) Indigenous land rights systems in sub-Saharan Africa: a constraint on productivity? World Bank Econ Rev 5(1):155 –175

Mkandawire T (2005) Maladjusted African economies and globalisation Afr Dev 30(1):1 –33 Mkandawire T (2010) How the new poverty agenda neglected social and employment policies in Africa J Hum Dev Capabilities 11(1):37 –55

Mkandawire T (2015) Neopatrimonialism and the political economy of economic performance in Africa: critical re flections World Polit 67(3):563–612

Mo Ibrahim Foundation (2018) 2018 Ibrahim index of African Governance: index report, October Available at: http://mo.ibrahim.foundation/iiag/

Mosley P, Subasat T, Weeks J (1995) Assessing adjustment in Africa World Dev 23:1459 –1473 Moss TJ, Pettersson G, Van de Walle N (2006) An aid-institutions paradox? A review essay on aid dependency and state building in sub-Saharan Africa Center for Global Development Working Paper, 74, pp 11 –25

Mussa M (2003) Meeting the challenges of globalisation J Afr Econ 12(Suppl 1):14 –34 Mwega FM (2002) Promotion of non-traditional exports in Kenya In: Helleiner GK (ed) Non-traditional export promotion in Africa: experience and issues Palgrave, New York, pp 159 –191

Ndulu B, Semboja J, Mbelle A (2002) Promotion of non-traditional exports in Kenya In: Helleiner GK (ed) Non-traditional export promotion in Africa: experience and issues Palgrave, New York, pp

159 –191

Nilsen AG (2018) Why the World Bank ’s optimism about global poverty misses the point, October 17 Available at: https://theconversation.com/why-the-world-banks-optimism-about-global-poverty-mis ses-the-point-104963

Nwankwo S (ed) (2003) Dimensions of African business and development Shef field Hallam University Press, Shef field

Nwankwo S (2011) Imagining Africa in the global economy Thunderbird Int Bus Rev 53(1):3 –8 Ohiorhenuan JFE (2010) Don ’t cry for me Africa Transition 102:140–157 https://doi.org/10.2979/trs 2010.-.102.140

Onyibe M (2017) Africapitalism and amazing Tony Elumelu, October 21 Available at: https:// www.vanguardngr.com/2017/10/africapitalism-amazing-tony-elumelu/

Onyibe M (2018) Jim Ovia: putting the shine on Africa ’s rise, September 28 Available at: https:// www.vanguardngr.com/2018/09/jim-ovia-putting-the-shine-on-africas-rise/

OXFAM (n.d.) Stand with us for an economy that works for everyone, not just the few https:// actions.oxfam.org/international/humaneconomy/human-economy-action/

Page T (2015) 326 billion reasons Africa is on the move, September 25 Available at: http://edition cnn.com/2015/08/21/africa/africa-construction-boom/index.html

Ramachandran V, Gelb AH, Shah MK (2009) Africa ’s private sector: what’s wrong with the business environment and what to do about it CGD Books, London

Rodrik D (2014) An African growth miracle? (No w20188) National Bureau of Economic Research Said K (2018) Small-scale farmers plead with government to allocate 10pc of budget to agriculture, November 4 Available at: https://www.thecitizen.co.tz/News/1840340-4836144-k8buoz/index.html

Sarfo A (2013) The uncomfortable truth: the myth of Africa ’s rise, January 8 Available at: http:// globalfusionproductions.com/featured/the-uncomfortable-truth-the-myth-of-africas-rise/

The Economist (2001) Globalization and its critics: a survey of globalization Economist (Special Supplement)

Thompson J (2016) Africa Rising hits speed bump but necessity is the mother of invention Edelman Magazine, 21 Mar 2016 Available at https://www.edelman.co.uk/magazine/posts/

2018

Tierney MJ, Nielson DL, Hawkins DG, Roberts JT, Findley MG, Powers RM, Parks B, Wilson SE, Hicks RL (2011) More dollars than sense: re fining our knowledge of development finance using aid data World Dev 39(11):1891 –1906

UNCTAD (1995) Foreign direct investment in Africa – 1995 United Nations, Geneva

UNDP (2011) People-centered development: empowered lives Resilient nations UNDP in Action – Annual Report 2010/2011 Available at: www.undp.org

Van der Ploeg F (2011) Natural resources: curse or blessing? J Econ Lit 49:366 –420

Wadongo E (2014) Africa rising? Let ’s be Afro-realistic Available at: http://www.theguardian com/global-development-professionals-network/2014/nov/07/africa-rising-lets-be-afro-realistic