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Strategic Entrepreneurship as a Driver for Regional Integration in West Africa


Abstract:

Probably one of the most difficult terrains to travel through is the West African sub region of Africa, there are very limited flight connections and there are very complex and tedious border formalities for road travelers. However, this need not be so as the vision of the founding fathers of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) is for full regional integration. We are of the opinion that if there exists proper economic cooperation and integration between countries in the sub region then, other areas of endeavour will be easier.

This paper therefore attempts to propose a means by which the region can integrate economically which is to develop their various areas of capabilities and build scale based on the available resources in each country. The paper will attempt to use the principle of Strategic Entrepreneurship to build a model for regional integration.

Introduction

Looking at the economic landscape in West Africa on expects that with the existence of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) there would by now be a stronger integration between the many countries within the sub region. Such integration is expected to be evident in the following areas;

Immigration; free movement of community citizens especially trough land borders

Easy Access ad routings between member states Vehicular Movements; free movement of vehicles across the land borders of

member states Trade and Economic ties; free movement and exchange of goods and services,

common customs tariff, common currency etc.

While one can make bold to say that all the above were the driving visions of the founding fathers of the community, the reality is to the contrary as today one of the most difficult regions to transverse is the ECOWAS sub region of Africa. Many signs of these are evident in the poorly developed routing of flights between the various member states, cumbersome border formalities for those using land borders, very difficult customs clearance procedures even for goods produced within the region.

All of the above have made economic cooperation between willing businesses in the various member states to be very unattractive as such volume of trade and economic cooperation between entities and various member countries is very low.

Looking at the economic landscape, one finds that member countries still reflect economic leanings towards their colonization biases, for example, countries with Francophone inclinations tend to cooperate better where such cooperation exist between them as like their Anglophone

Prof. Biahim Gueye and Adebiyi Oladipo (May 2013) 2 | P a g e


counterparts who also tend to have closer relationships. Breaking through the language barrier therefore remains a point to consider in fostering integration.

However, beyond the consideration of colonial and language inclination, it is our firm belief that integration would be better achieved if there is a strong economic dependency between member states and community members such that each member state would develop those areas of competencies and support the growth of businesses and entrepreneurial venture which will leverage on their areas of competencies or capabilities. The ability of each member state to develop their areas of competencies and develop scale in various dependent enterprises we believe will engender trade between the various community members and thereby increase economic cooperation between member states. Using the principle of strategic entrepreneurship and as nations continue to be involved in simultaneous opportunity-seeking and advantage-seeking behaviors that results in superior performance" (Hitt et al., 2011). We believe that they can create competitive advantage through the adoption of entrepreneurial mindset to economic development.

According to Kraus et al. (2012), Entrepreneurship is now acknowledged as one of the major driving forces of the economy in modern societies (Brock and Evans, 1989; Carree and Thurik, 2000). It is also considered a key instrument for coping with the new competitive landscape and its rapid rate of change (Hitt and Reed, 2000). Entrepreneurial behavior can be found in various kinds of enterprises, regardless of their size, age, or profit orientation (Kraus et al., 2007). It describes the process of value creation through the identification and exploitation of opportunities, e.g. through developing new products, seeking new markets, or both (Lumpkin et al., 1998; Shane and Venkataraman, 2000; McCline et al., 2000). It focuses on innovation by identifying market opportunities and by building a unique set of resources through which the opportunities can be exploited, and is usually connected with growth (Ireland et al., 2001; Davidsson et al., 2002). This in our view could be the key to integration as nations support the development of entrepreneurial initiatives that will help them create competitive advantage and act as a symbiotic force in Africa.

It is a general consensus that for the region and Africa in general to develop, there has to be stronger integration and economic cooperation between the many countries in Africa. This therefore brings us to the discussion of the role of Strategic Entrepreneurship in acting as a major Diver for stronger cooperation and regional integration.

Entrepreneurship:

World over the subject of entrepreneurship is taking centre stage and it is widely believed that this is the only avenue by which economies can grow especially within the context of emerging economies which Africa belongs.

Entrepreneurship is viewed by various authors and scholars as the use of available resources to create wealth. Citing the works of French economist Jean-Baptiste Say, who in the early 19th century described the entrepreneur as one who “shifts economic resources out of an area of lower and into an area of higher productivity and greater yield,” thereby expanding the literal



translation from the French, “one who undertakes,” to encompass the concept of value creation. Writing a century later, Austrian economist Joseph Schumpeter built upon this basic concept of value creation, contributing what is arguably the most influential idea about entrepreneurship. Schumpeter identified in the entrepreneur the force required to drive economic progress, absent which economies would become static, structurally immobilized, and subject to decay. Enter the Unternehmer, Schumpeter’s entrepreneurial spirit, who identifies a commercial opportunity whether a material, product, service, or business and organizes a venture to implement it. Successful entrepreneurship, he argues, sets off a chain reaction, encouraging other entrepreneurs to iterate upon and ultimately propagate the innovation to the point of “creative destruction,” a state at which the new venture and all its related ventures effectively render existing products, services, and business models obsolete.

Niels Bosma, Sander Wennekers and Jose Ernesto Amoros in the Extended 2011 GEM Report, aligned with the ´Schumpeterian´ view that entrepreneurs spur innovation, speeding up structural changes in the economy by introducing new competition, they contribute to productivity in the long run (Calléjon and Segarra, 1999; Audretsch and Keilbach, 2004, Aghion et al. 2004; Aghion et al. 2009; Bosma et al. 2011a). This perspective assumes an ambitious type of entrepreneurship to serve as a catalyst for economic growth, job creation and national competitiveness. This argument lays credence to the fact that entrepreneurs and the concept of entrepreneurship recognizes opportunities and as well as create opportunities.

On the other hand, however, Niels Bosma, Sander Wennekers and Jose Ernesto Amoros further stated that, many also consider the less ambitious types of entrepreneurship, i.e. (new) business activities with limited or no growth, innovation or international orientation, as relevant types of entrepreneurship. The reasons for doing so can be summarized in a social component and an economic component. The social component argues that people pursue their need for independence or have no alternative options for work; by having the option to engage in self-employment they take care of themselves and their families.

The economic component acknowledges that some self-employed contribute to the flexibility and productivity of the overall economy, even though others could possibly be more productive by working as an employee.

Increasingly, entrepreneurship researchers look beyond entrepreneurship as an occupation and consider entrepreneurial employee activity (also known as ´intrapreneurship’ or

‘corporate entrepreneurship’) also to be part of entrepreneurship. In so far as these entrepreneurial employees initiate ambitious ventures, this view is in full accordance with the Schumpeterian perspective. In this respect Shane and Venkataraman (2000) consider exploitation by existing organizations, i.e. (ambitious) entrepreneurial employee activity, and exploitation by ‘de novo start-ups’, i.e. independent entrepreneurship, as two alternative modes of exploitation of entrepreneurial opportunities. In studies comparing entrepreneurship across countries these distinctions are especially relevant as differences in level of economic development and differences in national culture and institutions may lead to varying



balances between independent (ambitious and non-ambitious) entrepreneurship andentrepreneurial employee activity. This view is also in accordance with a literature

stating that entrepreneurship is an omnipresent aspect of human action, but that its manifestation depends upon the institutional environment (Baumol, 1990; Boettke and Coyne, 2003).

Peter Drucker, on the other hand, does not see entrepreneurs as necessarily agents of change themselves, but rather as canny and committed exploiters of change. According to Drucker, “the entrepreneur always searches for change, responds to it, and exploits it as an opportunity,” a premise picked up by Israel Kirzner, who identifies “alertness” as the entrepreneur’s most critical ability.

Regardless of whether they cast the entrepreneur as a breakthrough innovator or an early exploiter, theorists universally associate entrepreneurship with opportunity. Entrepreneurs are believed to have an exceptional ability to see and seize upon new opportunities, the commitment and drive required to pursue them, and an unflinching willingness to bear the inherent risks. Building from this theoretical base, we believe that entrepreneurship describes the combination of a context in which an opportunity is situated, a set of personal characteristics required to identify and pursue this opportunity, and the creation of a particular outcome.

In the past decade, a number of trends have emerged which distinguish between individual entrepreneurship and corporate entrepreneurship (Wortman 1987), and entrepreneurs and small business owners (Carland et al, 1984). Literature abounds with criteria ranging from creativity and innovation to personal traits of entrepreneurs. A large literature has also developed ranging from academic studies to prescriptive blueprints for setting up new ventures. The term "entrepreneur" has often been applied to the founder of a new business, or a person "who started a new business where there was none before" (Gartner, 1985).

In general therefore, entrepreneurs create new businesses, and new businesses in turn create jobs, intensify competition, and may even increase productivity through technological development and change. It therefore should follow that high (measured) levels of entrepreneurship should thus translate directly into high levels of economic growth.

However, the reality is more complicated, while some economies have been able to strike the right balance, others are still looking at finding ways of employing the instrumentality of the enterprise as a growth driver. For the most the initial complication arises first from the definition of entrepreneurship and the enterprise. Views from various researchers range from viewing entrepreneurship broadly as any form of self-employment both Formal or Informal to specifically categorizing entrepreneurship into ‘Necessity’ Entrepreneurship and ‘Opportunity’ Entrepreneurship where the former refers to becoming an entrepreneur basically out of no other



choice as opposed to the later which is an active choice to start a new enterprise based on the perception that an unexploited, or underexploited business opportunity exists.

When analyzing data gathered by GEM researchers in eleven countries, Atilla Varga and Zoltan J. Acs (Zoltan 2007), have found that effects on economic growth and development of necessity and opportunity entrepreneurship, respectively, vary greatly. They found that necessity entrepreneurship had no effect on economic development while opportunity entrepreneurship has a positive and significant effect. Zoltan further observed that after the fall of the Berlin Wall many uneconomical factories were closed in Central Europe as economies became integrated into the global economy. These workers who had jobs in the plants and factories of the former Socialist countries were productive members of society. However, as factories were closed one after another, many of these workers found themselves with no other options for work other than self-employment— Necessity Entrepreneurship. As one would expect, the influx of many former wageworkers into necessity entrepreneurship resulted in several years of negative GDP growth.

He is of the opinion that this story can be retold in several other countries around the world when economies are confronted with structural changes. While it is easy to see that starting a new business to exploit a perceived business opportunity would lead to economic development, it is also possible that necessity entrepreneurship may not lead to economic development. Being pushed into entrepreneurship (self-employment) because all other options for work are either absent or unsatisfactory, can even lead to under development. While all countries have some level of both opportunity and necessity entrepreneurship they suggested that the ratio of opportunity-to-necessity entrepreneurship should be a useful indicator of economic development, and can be a guide for development policy. In fact they found a positive relationship between the opportunity ratio and GDP per capita. They then suggested that policies in less developed countries should focus on strengthening General National Framework Conditions and in developed economies policy should focus on strengthening the entrepreneurial framework conditions.

Also, scholars and researchers have also identified two (2) broad categories of entrepreneurship which might not fit into the categorization of Necessity or Opportunity Entrepreneurship, these are Social Entrepreneurship and Environmental or Green Entrepreneurship (also called Eco-Entrepreneurship).



Social entrepreneurship is the work of social entrepreneurs. A social entrepreneur recognizes a social problem and uses entrepreneurial principles to organize, create and manage a venture to achieve social change (a social venture).

While a business entrepreneur typically measures performance in profit and return, a social entrepreneur focuses on creating social capital. Thus, the main aim of social entrepreneurship is to further social and environmental goals. Social entrepreneurs are most commonly associated with the voluntary and not-for-profit sectors, but this needs not preclude making a profit. Social entrepreneurship practiced with a world view or international context is called international social entrepreneurship.

According to Sameer Abu-Saifan (2012), Social entrepreneurship is the field in which entrepreneurs tailor their activities to be directly tied with the ultimate goal of creating social value. In doing so, they often act with little or no intention to gain personal profit. A social entrepreneur “combines the passion of a social mission with an image of business-like discipline, innovation, and determination commonly associated with, for instance, the high-tech pioneers of Silicon Valley” (Dees, 1998). Any definition of the term “social entrepreneurship” must start with the word “entrepreneurship.” The word “social” simply modifies entrepreneurship. If entrepreneurship doesn’t have a clear meaning, then modifying it with social won’t accomplish much, either. Martin & Osberg (2007) in their attempt to find a meaning for Social Entrepreneurship noted that the word entrepreneurship is a mixed blessing; on the positive side, it connotes a special, innate ability to sense and act on opportunity, combining out-of-the-box thinking with a unique brand of determination to create or bring about something new to the world. On the negative side, entrepreneurship is an ex posts term, because entrepreneurial activities require a passage of time before their true impact is evident.

The terms social entrepreneur and social entrepreneurship were used first in the literature on social change in the 1960s and 1970s. The terms came into widespread use in the 1980s and 1990s, promoted by Bill Drayton the founder of Ashoka: Innovators for the Public, and others such as Charles Leadbeater. From the 1950s to the 1990s Michael Young was a leading promoter of social enterprise and in the 1980s was described by Professor Daniel Bell at Harvard as 'the world's most successful entrepreneur of social enterprises' because of his role in creating more than sixty new organizations worldwide, including a series of Schools for Social Entrepreneurs in the UK. The concept of social entrepreneurship is growing and catching on especially in developing economies and it is being seen as the means of sustainable Enterprise development.

On the other hand, as regards Environmental or Eco-Entrepreneurship Patrick Tandoh-Offin (2009), remarked that, there is no shortage of research on the idea of “environmental entrepreneurship” in the developed world especially in the United States and Western Europe. But the same cannot be said about the developing world. There are researchers who have focused on providing descriptive variables to characterize individuals who engage in innovative business



enterprises in sustainable ways referred to variously as “environmental entrepreneurs” “eco-preneurs” and “eco-entrepreneurs”. Different writers and researchers have variously referred to the concept of “environmental entrepreneurship” such as green entrepreneurship, enviro-preneurship, ecological entrepreneurship and eco-capitalism (Schumpeter, 1934; Isaak, 1998; and Larson, 2000). Isaak (1998) for instance describes “ecopreneurship” as businesses founded on the principles of sustainability. Schumpeter (1934) and Larson (2000) also used the term ‘creative destruction’ to refer to the act of transforming the technology, products and markets through sustainable innovations and the role such innovations play as a fundamental force for change in business and society. The individuals or group of people who serve as the agents that bring about these changes have also been referred to as ecopreneur, enviropreneurs and green entrepreneurs by researchers interested in the idea of entrepreneurship (Larson, 2000). In any of the different ways that the concept has been described, a common theme that resonates is the fact that environmental entrepreneurship connotes the idea of developing a business while at the same time demonstrating a concern for ecological and social needs of present and future generations (Schaper, 2002).

The underlying fact therefore is no matter what way we turn as far as entrepreneurship is concerned, it ultimately leads to the creation of a business or enterprise which goes further to contribute to the economic development of a nation by providing employment to many individuals, stimulating production and ultimately the creation of wealth and thereby contributing to the overall Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of the nation.

If we follow the arguments above therefore, one cannot but reason along the lines of thoughts of the school of thought which promotes the Resource Based Theory of Entrepreneurship which is that the development or creation of an enterprise s dependent on the availability of resources to do so. Scholars within this school of thought argue that access to resources by founders is an important predictor of opportunity based entrepreneurship and new venture growth (Alvarez & Busenitz, 2001).This theory stresses the importance of financial, social and human resources (Aldrich, 1999). Thus, access to resources enhances the individual’s ability to detect and act upon discovered opportunities (Davidson & Honing, 2003). There are three classes of theories under the Resource –Based Entrepreneurship Theories, these are; Financial, Social and Human Capital Theories. It would be pertinent to note that in operationalizing this theory, Resources refer to everything (including capital and finances) that would showcase the capabilities of the entrepreneur as such the entrepreneurial nation.

This theory (RBV) asserts that firms gain and sustain competitive advantages by deploying valuable resources and capabilities that are inelastic in supply (Wernerfelt, 1984; Barney, 1986, 1991; Peteraf, 1993). The resource-based view (RBV) as a basis for a competitive advantage of a firm lies primarily in the application of the bundle of valuable interchangable and intangible tangible resources at the firm's disposal (Mwailu & Mercer, 1983, Wernerfelt, 1984, Rumelt, 1984, Penrose, 1959) to transform a short-run competitive advantage into a sustained competitive advantage requires that these resources are heterogeneous in nature and not perfectly mobile (Peteraf, 1993). According to Barney, (1991), this effectively translates into valuable resources that are neither perfectly imitable nor substitutable without great effort. If these conditions hold, the firm’s bundle of resources can assist the firm sustaining above average returns.



The general idea is that entrepreneurs will naturally gravitate towards establishing and running businesses that they are best resourced to run. The resource referred to must of necessity satisfy some basic criteria in order to be qualified as a resource.

The key points of the theory are:

Identify the firm’s potential key resources, those resources that could be used to create competitive advantage.

Evaluate whether these resources fulfill the following criteria (referred to as the Barney’s VRIN):

o Valuable – A resource must enable a firm to employ a value-creating strategy, by either outperforming its competitors or reduce its own weaknesses. Relevant in this perspective is that the transaction costs associated with the investment in the resource cannot be higher than the discounted future rents that flow out of the value-creating strategy (Mahoney and Prahalad, 1992, Conner, 1992).

o Rare – To be of value, a resource must be rare by definition. In a perfectly competitive strategic factor market for a resource, the price of the resource will be a reflection of the expected discounted future above-average returns (Barney, 1986, Dierickx and Cool, 1989).

o In-imitable – If a valuable resource is controlled by only one firm it could be a source of a competitive advantage. This advantage could be sustainable if competitors are not able to duplicate this strategic asset perfectly (Peteraf, 1993, 1986). The term isolating mechanism was introduced by Rumelt (1984) to explain why firms might not be able to imitate a resource to the degree that they are able to compete with the firm having the valuable resource (Peteraf, 1993, Mahoney and Pandian, 1992). An important underlying factor of inimitability is causal ambiguity, which occurs if the source from which a firm’s competitive advantage stems is unknown (Peteraf, 1993, Lippman and Rumelt, 1982). If the resource in question is knowledge-based or socially complex, causal ambiguity is more likely to occur as these types of resources are more likely to be idiosyncratic to the firm in which it resides (Peteraf, 1993, Mahoney and Pandian, 1992). Conner and Prahalad go so far as to say knowledge-based resources are “…the essence of the resource-based perspective” (1996).

o Non-substitutable – Even if a resource is rare, potentially value-creating and imperfectly imitable, an equally important aspect is lack of substitutability (Dierickx and Cool, 1989). If competitors are able to counter the firm’s value-creating strategy with a substitute, prices are driven down to the point that the price equals the discounted future rents (Barney, 1986, sheikh, 1991), resulting in zero economic profits.



It is expected the entrepreneur or the custodians of these resource will care for and protect resources which possess these evaluations, because doing so can improve organizational performance (Crook, Ketchen, Combs, and Todd, 2008).

The VRIN characteristics mentioned are individually necessary, but not sufficient conditions for a sustained competitive advantage (Dierickx and Cool, 1989, Priem and Butler, 2001). Within the framework of the resource-based view, the chain is as strong as its weakest link and therefore requires the resource to display each of the four characteristics to be a possible source of a sustainable competitive advantage (Amit et al 1993).Therefore whether the consideration is in starting a new business venture or running and expanding an existing business, availability of resources to create a competitive advantage is paramount. Resources in the context of the RBV refer to anything that the firm could use to create and sustain competitive advantage.

In line with this theory therefore, we expect that nations can also encourage the setting up of entrepreneurial ventures and businesses that best utilize the resources available to them that would put them in the position where they can be best positioned to be of service to other nations around them thereby fostering interaction between them.

Following from this thoughts is the fact that every country has inherent resources available that can be used to create competitive advantage for themselves, either by tapping these resources and producing an array of finished goods/services and building their own capacity to produce or by being the source of raw materials in the production value chain for industries in other nations. By creating this competitive advantage therefore, there would be growth of businesses and entrepreneurial ventures along these competitive lines and those nations can begin to build scale in those areas of capabilities which could then translate to interactions that would ultimately translate to cooperation and integration.

Underlying these thoughts is the concept of Strategic Entrepreneurship; this will be discussed in the following section.

Strategic Entrepreneurship

There were beliefs that there existed a gap between Strategic Management and Entrepreneurship, hence the need to profile a framework to address the intersection between the two phenomenon (Schendel and Hitt 2007), in doing so therefore, various scholars and authors came up with the concept of Strategic Entrepreneurship.

According to Schendel and Hitt (2007), while Entrepreneurship is a process centrally concerned with the notions of opportunity, its recognition, discovery, and/or creation. Opportunity is defined as the creation of new value to society in part or in whole, Strategic Management as a field is concerned with all types of organizations, their creation, survival, and success, and with the fundamental notion that no organization survives unless it can, over some duration of time, create and maintain an offer of value for some segment of society which it serves. Such value is produced by securing and maintaining the resources necessary to support that value creation. In



fact, the strategic management field has contributed substantial knowledge on the subject of balancing value creation with potential opportunity.

This intersection of entrepreneurship and strategic management deals then with what we label the four i’s: imagination, ideas, invention and innovation; in other words, it focuses on the discovery or creation of new things, with advances from which society benefits through new value propositions that better serve the needs of some segment, or the whole, of society.

Entrepreneurship and strategic management are concerned with growth and wealth creation (Amit & Zott, 2001; Hitt & Ireland, 2000; Hitt, Ireland, Camp & Sexton, 2001, 2002; Ireland, Hitt, Camp & Sexton, 2001; Morris, 1998; Priem & Butler, 2001b). Indeed growth and wealth creation are entrepreneurship’s defining objectives (Certo, Covin, Daily & Dalton, 2001; Ireland,Kuratko&Covin, 2003). In addition, entrepreneurship increasingly is viewed as a stimulus to wealth creation in emerging, developing, and developed economies as a result of the actions of individual firms (Peng, 2001; Zahra, Ireland, Gutierrez & Hitt, 2000). Similarly, strategic management is concerned with understanding the reasons

While citing some authors, Kraus, Harms and Filser (2012) summarized Strategic Entrepreneurship as involving simultaneous opportunity-seeking and advantage-seeking behaviors and results in superior firm performance" (Hitt et al., 2011). To them, this recent definition highlights the origins of Strategic Entrepreneurship in both entrepreneurship and strategic management: Rooted in Entrepreneurship, Strategic Entrpreneurship is concerned with the discovery and creation of opportunities with the goal of creating value (Hitt et al., 2011). Rooted in Strategic Management, Strategic Entrepreneurship is also concerned with the creation of sustainable competitive advantages as pathways towards opportunity exploitation (Harms et al., 2012).

In investigating the link between Strategic Management and Entrepreneurship, Harms et al, (2012) attempted to trace the origin of researches in both Strategic Management and Entrepreneurship, according to them while Strategic Management deals with the development of sustainable competitive advantages resulting in the creation of value (Ramachandran et al., 2006), early research almost solely investigated strategic issues in large, established enterprises (Analoui and Karami, 2003). However, Strategic Management research has moved beyond this context. They further gave the example that, as early as 1934, Schumpeter (1934) highlighted the temporary nature of competitive advantages. This requires firms to continuously seek new avenues towards competitive advantages, i.e. through entrepreneurial behavior that leads to the exploration and creation of new opportunities (Ireland et al., 2001). On the other hand, they remarked that entrepreneurship as an academic field can be traced back to the 18th century, when Cantillon (1755) used this term to differentiate self-employed entrepreneurs from employed workers, and in the process linked entrepreneurship and risk-taking. Entrepreneurship is now acknowledged as one of the major driving forces of the economy in modern societies (Brock and Evans, 1989; Carree and Thurik, 2000). It is also considered a key instrument for coping with the new competitive landscape and its rapid rate of change (Hitt and Reed, 2000). Entrepreneurial behavior can be found in various kinds of enterprises, regardless of their size, age, or profit orientation (Kraus et al., 2007). It describes the process of value creation through the



identification and exploitation of opportunities, e.g. through developing new products, seeking new markets, or both (Lumpkin et al., 1998; Shane and Venkataraman, 2000; McCline et al., 2000). It focuses on innovation by identifying market opportunities and by building a unique set of resources through which the opportunities can be exploited, and is usually connected with growth (Ireland et al., 2001; Davidsson et al., 2002). Entrepreneurial enterprises identify and exploit opportunities that their competitors have not yet observed or have underexploited (Hitt et al., 2002). An entrepreneurial enterprise's resources are often intangible, and involve aspects such as unique knowledge or proprietary technology.

A link between strategic management and entrepreneurship was established as early as 1979, when Schendel and Hofer (1979) linked both research fields by defining strategic management as "a process that deals with the entrepreneurial work of the organization, with organizational renewal and growth." and furthermore stated that "the entrepreneurial choice is at the heart of the concept of strategy". According to them, Stevenson and Jarillo (1990) noted that there is a need to establish links between the fields of entrepreneurship and strategic management. As Dess et al. (1999) put it, "understanding entrepreneurial processes has been a central theme in a good deal of both the entrepreneurship and strategic management literatures".

Various authors have identified that one of the most obvious linkages between entrepreneurship and strategic management is in the topic of opportunities. Opportunities are both at the very heart of entrepreneurship and part of the SWOT analysis of strategic management. Enterprises create value by identifying opportunities in their external environment and by subsequently developing competitive advantages to exploit them (Harms et al., 2012; Hitt et al., 2001; Ireland et al., 2001). Finally, Strategic Entrepreneurship can be seen as a process in which opportunity exploration and exploitation are balanced (Ireland et al. 2003).

Discussions Summary and Conclusions

From the foregoing, the challenge would be to draw a parallel between the principles of Strategic Entrepreneurship and the competitiveness of countries in the West African Sub region. The first challenge would be to provide an insight into what resources are available to the various countries and which ones could be leveraged to provide competitive advantage for such countries. As was noted above, resources need not be finance or capital, but could also be in the availability of market for goods and services. The question will therefore be where are those areas where individual countries in the sub region have or can create competitive advantage. In investigating these facts therefore a number of questions will beg to be answered, these are;

1. What are the resources available to the various countries that they can tap into?2. What competitive advantage do they have that can be used to better develop their

economies?3. Are their areas of capabilities that they have that can be leveraged to interact with other

nations in the sub regions economically4. What areas can these nations develop economies of scale that would in turn be viewed as

a competitive advantage?



5. Can these resources be leveraged for closer integration with other countries in the region?

6. Under what terms and conditions would such interaction/integration occur?

At this point, let us consider some facts about the West African region; with regards to population, the region is believed to have a rapid population growth. In 2010, some 318 million people lived in West Africa. The regional population is expected to exceed 400 million by 2020 and 500 million between 2030 and 2035. By 2050, West Africa will host more people than Northern America (450 million) and almost as many people as Latin America (700 million) or Europe (720 million). Nigeria alone is home to 50% of the West African population; it is the largest demographic power in Africa and the eighth in the world.

With regards to land mass, the size of the West African region is imposing: ECOWAS member countries, Chad and Mauritania cover a surface area of 7.4 million km², almost twice the size of all the 27 European Union member countries combined (4.3 million km2). West Africa is a land of contrasts where, from North to South, the desert opens on to the Savannah; the savannah gives way to the forest, and the forest to the ocean.

On Economic issues and classification; West Africa’s economy can be described by three categories of countries: The Gulf of Guinea countries bordering Nigeria are considered the heart of the regional economy. They account for over 80% of the region’s GDP. The Atlantic front has an urbanization rate that is slightly above average for the region and creating urban jobs is a key challenge. The large landlocked countries have to face numerous challenges, including that of their landlocked position, their huge land mass, low population density and major ecological constraints. They rely mostly on the development of their agricultural and agro-industrial potentials. With the exception of Cape Verde, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana and Nigeria, all West African countries are classified as “Least Developed Countries” (LDC). However, most West African economies have registered strong growth rates over the past decade and were able to weather the global economic crisis remarkably well. West Africa has established a zone for free movement of people and goods within the ECOWAS area, and a common currency within the eight UEMOA countries.

A resource-rich region, West Africa is rich in many natural resources. Guinea has the world‘s largest bauxite resources. Niger is among the top ten uranium producers. Ghana and Mali are major gold producing countries. West Africa’s oil resources will increasingly play a role in diversifying oil sources worldwide. West African countries also remain the second largest cotton exporter, following the USA. While 80 percent of its cotton is exported to Asia, 16 percent is traded within the West African region. Cocoa is grown on some two million small farms. West Africa accounts for 70% of global cocoa production.

As regards Regional Co-operation, politically, West Africa is the most advanced African region in terms of regional co-operation, although this has not really translated much into economic integration, it is believed even in political circles that much remains to be done: free movement of people and goods, common external tariff, regional food crisis prevention and management, common agricultural policy, mining policy, intraregional electricity exchange, regional gas



pipelines, joint position on migration, regional conflict prevention, cross-border co-operation, etc. fostering a joint action is an efficient way to tackle development challenges.

Looking at the region (West Africa) from the foregoing, one would be tempted to think that the region possesses all the attributes of becoming an economic success if the right ingredients are put in place.

Therefore, linking the facts and realities to the earlier discussions, we believe that if the region can follow the principles of Strategic Entrepreneurship and each nation develops competitive advantage and bring up policies to grow the areas of their competitive advantage thereby encouraging people to build sustainable businesses in the various areas of strength, then it will remain to sale and rely on the synergies created across the region.

To achieve this therefore, we are of the strong pinion that deliberate policies and institutions need to be made to encourage individuals to move in line with this type of thinking to grw competitive advantage. Some authors and researchers have provided further insights into the effect of policies and institutions on entrepreneurship, and the role of active government support and how they in turn affect economic growth. A common thread is that institutional reform may only be necessary but not sufficient for entrepreneurial development. For example, José Ernesto Amorós examines the relationship between different kinds of entrepreneurship (GEM data) and the quality of governance (WB worldwide governance indicators). The results are inconclusive, but they seem to suggest that the quality of institutions is positively related to opportunity driven (productive) entrepreneurship), which as Wim Naudé establishes, drives economic growth and has negative effects on necessity based (unproductive) entrepreneurship. However, good institutions seem not to be sufficient to improve entrepreneurship.

For Amorós the policy implication is that developing countries need to make the promotion of productive, innovation-based entrepreneurship a key concern of their policy agenda to achieve economic development. In terms of the kind of policies required, Wim Naudé’s finding that governance and start-up costs are not a significant determinant of opportunity entrepreneurship suggests that “regulatory reform may not result in the type of entrepreneurship most beneficial to growth”. He concludes that pro-active state-actions may be required.

These thoughts when combined with the principles of Strategic Entrepreneurship will help drive the drive towards building businesses in the areas of strength and thus provide platforms for synergies and in turn integration.


http://info.worldbank.org/governance/wgi/index.asp


References:

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