Making Sense of Africa's Emerging Digital Transformation and its Many Futures

Ndemo, Bitange; Weiss, Tim

doi:10.1080/23322373.2017.1400260

Cited by 67 publications

(47 citation statements)

References 45 publications

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“…Nairobi Garage (http://nairobigarage.com) (cf., Littlewood & Kiyumbu, 2018;Ndemo & Weiss, 2017). However, in our study, the impact of the support of intermediaries was rather limited because only 10 informants (out of 47) were (paying) members of these hubs or of any other similar organizations.…”

Section: Cross-bracing the Institutional Infrastructurementioning

confidence: 80%

“…Unfortunately, the presence of institutional intermediariesand thus their reach and impactremains limited in many of these countries (Cao & Shi, 2020) and especially in Africa (George et al, 2016a). For example, tracing the diffusion of technology incubators in the African continent -commonly referred to as 'hubs' (cf., Littlewood & Kiyumbu, 2018;Ndemo & Weiss, 2017) -Friederici (2019) questioned their effectiveness in filling institutional voids and warned about a lack of evidence on their impact on entrepreneurial startup creation and growth. Sheriff and Muffatto (2015) also studied entrepreneurial ecosystems in fifteen African countries and concluded that the impact of institutional intermediaries remains negligible.…”

Section: Institutional Uncertainty and Formal Workaround Practice In mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Entrepreneurial Workaround Practices in Severe Institutional Voids: Evidence From Kenya

Sydow¹,

Cannatelli

Giudici

et al. 2020

Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice

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Entrepreneurs in developing economies try to cope with weak or absent formal institutions—often referred to as “institutional voids”—by relying extensively on intermediary organizations such as business incubators and development organizations or informal institutions such as political, kinship, or family relationships. However, in many African countries, intermediary support is limited and informal institutions are also unreliable, adding risks and costs to doing business and increasing the severity of institutional voids in the surrounding ecosystem. We investigate the practices followed by 47 commercial entrepreneurs in Kenya to “work around” these severe institutional voids to achieve their goals of business creation and growth. We find that severe institutional voids stimulate the hybridization of goals to include social value creation, create a need for a more strategic orchestration of business relationships, and motivate entrepreneurs to proactively cross-brace the institutional infrastructure around them. We contribute by unveiling the important role of entrepreneurs as microinstitutional agents in developing economies and by detailing how commercial and social goals become intertwined in the context of African entrepreneurship.

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Section: Cross-bracing the Institutional Infrastructurementioning

confidence: 80%

Section: Institutional Uncertainty and Formal Workaround Practice In mentioning

confidence: 99%

Entrepreneurial Workaround Practices in Severe Institutional Voids: Evidence From Kenya

Sydow¹,

Cannatelli

Giudici

et al. 2020

Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

Section: Digitalization: Case Study Of Africamentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Studies point to the impact digital transformation could significantly have on economic growth and employment opportunities in different parts of the world including Africa (Ndemo and Weiss 2017). Ndemo and Weiss (2017) reported a massive boost to the mobile market in Africa with an increase in GDP by 7.7%, which can be attributed to the increase in the use of smartphones in Africa. The invention of mobile money platforms such as mPesa in Kenya led to the rise of other similar inventions across Africa leading to improved living conditions of micro entrepreneurs (Asamoah et al 2020), reduced transaction costs, and increased efficient financial transfers (Alhassan and Koaudio 2019).…”

Section: Digitalization: Case Study Of Africamentioning

confidence: 99%

Digital Transformation and Global Health in Africa

Iyawa¹,

Hamunyela²,

Peters³

et al. 2020

Handbook of Global Health

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“…Despite this gloomy prognosis, many authors were optimistic about Africa and now, the long anticipated African digital transformation poised to leapfrog other regions, may be about to materialize. The term digital divide is steadily giving way to digital transformation (Ndemo & Weiss, 2017) due to the tremendous increase in broadband services offerings and wide-spread deployment of mobile technologies. Many countries have experienced a surge in infrastructure development and mobile phone connectivity (Mutula, 2008), a result of new policies that have allowed competition in the African information and communication technologies' markets.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Transformation of Africa’s Digital Economy: An Analysis of the Drivers

Powanga¹

2019

IJAR

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The analysis of the trends in the growth of the digital economy in Africa particularly sub-Saharan Africa and the drivers behind that trend are presented in this paper. The author concludes that the digital divide between Africa and other continents is rapidly closing owing to deployment of large data pipes to connect the continent to other regions and countries within the continent, reduction in the cost of internet delivery, increased internet security, decline in the cost of cell phones, increase in population particular the emergence of the youth population which is quick to adopt new technologies, and the migration of the population to cities. Other contributing factors include adoption of production technologies such as such as artificial intelligence and the Internet of Things, the need for telemedicine to deliver healthcare to rural areas and migration of most business transactions to online platforms, which all produce large volumes of data for instant use.

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Making Sense of Africa's Emerging Digital Transformation and its Many Futures

Cited by 67 publications

References 45 publications

Entrepreneurial Workaround Practices in Severe Institutional Voids: Evidence From Kenya

Entrepreneurial Workaround Practices in Severe Institutional Voids: Evidence From Kenya

Digital Transformation and Global Health in Africa

Transformation of Africa’s Digital Economy: An Analysis of the Drivers

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