Entrepreneurial Resource Mobilisation Strategies in Uncertain Contexts: the Case of Waste Collection Entrepreneurs in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso
Abstract
Entrepreneurship in Africa is fascinating by its diversity, yet underexplored. Faced with the continent’s sustainable challenges, the doctoral research attempts to understand how Sub-Saharan African entrepreneurs access resources in an uncertain context, the types of strategy they apply, and the success or failure this has on their venture. Three papers will try to answer these complex questions by examining the uncertain waste management sector in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. The first paper depicts the variety of practices implemented by waste collection entrepreneurs in response to the resource constraints imposed by their environment. By building on cognitive entrepreneurship, the second paper examines the connection between entrepreneurs’ perceptions and practices, by examining how they perceive their capacity to access resources, based on different perceptions i.e. environmental uncertainty, venture’s mission and self-perception. Using the emerging theory of entrepreneurial bricolage, the third paper burrows deeper by asking whether an entrepreneur’s temporal orientation may shape the construction of resources in contexts located in between local, traditional economic practices and international business influence. The integration of the final findings leads to a typology of African entrepreneurs according to an ideal-type approach. For each entrepreneur, the cognitive and metaphysical dimensions are decisive. These categories of entrepreneurs make it possible, at a theoretical level, to reconsider theories in entrepreneurship and, at a more practical and political level, to rethink the dominant economic models of development.
