Profiling Black African entrepreneurs in the UK

Abstract: Profiling Black Africans in terms of entrepreneurial characteristics is fraught with complications due, in part, to the diffused nature of their entrepreneurial endeavours. Whilst a pattern of market concentration is discernible at the co-ethnic level (i.e., first-entry market), there is little evidence of strategic evolution towards mainstreaming or the attainment of sectoral aggregation either at national or at regional level. As a result, they tend to suffer significant late mover disadvantages, which have continued to profoundly impact the growth and sustainability of their entrepreneurialism. This chapter, taken from a broader project, focuses on the more fundamental levels of personal involvement, i.e., the entrepreneurs themselves. It does this by providing a general characterisation of entrepreneurial orientations and thematically sketches a trajectory of underlying motivations. It is observed that many Black Africans embarked on entrepreneurship more to escape ethnic penalties than a strategic response to the structure of environmental opportunities. Thus, this ‘escapist mindset’ has meant that inadequate initial preparations have tended to characterise many African-owned small businesses. Consequently, many are failure-prone and in need of strategic interventions to secure their growth and sustainability.