ABSTRACT
How have African entrepreneurs of different generations and epochs formulated economic expectations while taking into account both the uncertainties and risks associated with business and investment? What factors have influenced the expectation-setting modalities and maneuvers of historical and contemporary African entrepreneurs as they sought to protect their enterprises against uncertainties and take risks? This chapter argues that the economic expectations and decision-making repertoires of African entrepreneurs cannot be understood in a strictly rational-economistic frame outside the political, social, moral, and religious universes in which African entrepeneurs operate and which define their social relevance and rewards. The eclectic pressures, opportunities, constraints, and expectations that proximate the societal, familial, ethical, and moral expectations placed on African entrepreneurs intersect with their own rational instincts as businesspeople to shape both the trajectory of their economic expectations and the decisions they make in pursuit of those expectations. This chapter invokes the African moral philosophy of Ubuntu as a way of theorizing the foundations of this capacious expectational universe.
