Factors contributing to growth expectations of African entrepreneurs

Abstract

Despite the consensus regarding the importance of business with growth expectations, there are limited studies that explore factors that induce and are associated with growth expectations of entrepreneurs. The gap particularly becomes worse when considering the growth expectations of African Total Entrepreneurial Activity (TEA). This paper, examines the relationship between growth expectations of TEA in Africa with new product development and international business orientation, and type of entrepreneurship with the view of addressing the gap and encouraging future academic discourse. Six years of GEM data of four African countries were used. The major finding was that growth expectations of African TEA are strongly correlated with new product orientation and international business orientation. Contrary to previous research it was found that growth expectations and type of entrepreneurship (opportunity and necessity entrepreneurship) have no statistically significant association. Moreover, the result upholds the virtuous circle relationship between new product and international business orientations established by previous studies.