ABSTRACT

This study aims to explore entrepreneurship characteristics of black African communities in the UK and to understand, within this context, the process, attribution and outcome of their entrepreneurship. The study employs the tools of discourse analysis to analyse the turbulence in the business environment they operate in, and to offer new perspectives that could lead to fundamental changes in institutional customs and praxes. Local ethnic resources and twenty-four interviews were exploited to collect data from the Nigerian ethnic group in London. A number of both endogenous and exogenous factors constraining and/or preventing entrepreneurship were unearthed from this study – key among which are: the duplicity of social capital/network that seems to challenge the dominant views in ethnic entrepreneurship literature; diaspora-linked pressures; lack of role models, and the usual suspects of – financial exclusion, little engagement with support services, deficient navigation of regulations/bylaws, and competitive pressures. Disentangling the intricate features of black African entrepreneurship will help refocus African entrepreneurs to self-help measures, and will assist policy-makers to successfully identify and respond, especially in the light of community and socio-economic differences, to problems of African ethnic groups.