Culture and Business in Sub-saharan Africa: an outlook on Kenya

Abstract

he culture of doing business in Sub-Saharan Africa involves the engagement of family members (Waweru, Mutuma & Chege, 2015) to participate in income generating activities. Each member of the family has a role towards sustenance of the family. This culture is “nurtured” at birth and passed on from one generation to another as traditions, customs, societal norms, unwritten codes of conduct and tend to be resistant to change (Bruton et al., 2008). Sub-Saharan African’s have a mixed way of engaging in business activities that ranges from the formal, the informal, and the indigenous (see Madichie et al., 2021; Madichie et al., 2020; Nkamnebe & Madichie, 2010; Madichie, 2005). The indigenous, informal and formal economic activities are best understood as social groupings whose industrious activities are subject to varying legal statuses, state intervention, and fabrication of relations rather than as dual sectors (Portes et al., 1986). The tradition in Kenya bestows on a father, as the head of the

family, a major role of a bread winner in the family unit. As the patriarch, a father has a duty to provide for his family (Gupta et al., 2010). The mother’s role is to supplement what the father brings home, while the role of the children is to assist the mother in supplementing family’s sustenance through income generation. If a father is employed or engaged in a formal business, then other members of the family have an obligation to assist in income generation for family sustenance through indigenous methods that are perceived to have value in their own right (Blunt & Jones, 1997). These types of business activities include farming and raising livestock, maintaining indigenous retail shops (known as kiosks) and selling of food items. It is worthwhile to note that these activities are not restricted to urban areas, but are also carried out in rural areas. The current study adds to the limited literature on business activities and culture in sub-Saharan Africa which is currently largely concentrated on the formal sector (see for example Minnis, 2006; Pedersen & McCormick, 1999) and discusses the impact of the recent pandemic (COVID-19) on business activities of women and children who still had to generate income to either supplement father’s income or to sustain the family