The Significance of Indigenous Entrepreneurship in Sub-Saharan Africa: An Introduction

As the world is rapidly globalizing, the need is growing for more localized views of non-mainstream entrepreneurial activities. Views that come from within, not from outside. This helps us in understanding phenomena that have largely been overlooked so far, but which have perhaps been around for centuries. A special phenomena is “indigenous entrepreneurship”, which occurs in many places around the world, but particularly in a vast region where business is bustling and booming: Sub-Saharan Africa. In this introductory chapter, we introduce the term “indigenous entrepreneurship”, which is followed by a brief discussion on the relevance of indigenous entrepreneurship research in Sub-Saharan Africa. We close the chapter with an informative description of Sub-Saharan Africa and indigenous peoples and a short outlook on the insightful chapters of this book.