Culture and business in Sub-Saharan Africa: An outlook on Kenya

Abstract

The 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).