Mentalpreneurial Differences and Similarities: Ghanaian and United States Entrepreneurs who Start Family Businesses

The Context Of Entrepreneurship In Africa

This chapter addresses the first of these gaps by describing the entrepreneurial context that family businesses in Africa operate in. Such contextualization is also important as we focus on addressing the second gap in the literature: a comparison of entrepreneurship associated with family businesses startups in the United States and Ghana. We therefore review the seven studies that we incorporated in Part One of our book. In so doing some of the chapters in this book reflect some key current and historical factors associated with the entrepreneurial context in Africa in general while some are more regional and country specific and highlight countries in North Africa (Tunisia, Libya and Egypt), West Africa (Ghana). In general the seven chapters represented in Part One of this book point to both the substantive challenges and more positive trends of the context of entrepreneurship.