Capacity building for entrepreneurship development in Ghana: prospects and challenges

Abstract

Entrepreneurship development is vitally important for the growth and development of all nations. Thus developing countries must put the necessary measures in place to ensure the growth and development of the small business sector. The overarching aim the study was to investigate the prospects and challenges of building the capacities of owner managers and/or entrepreneurs for growth and development. Purposive random sampling technique was used to collect data from forty-one owner managers and nineteen officials of enterprise support organisations. Data collection tools were interviews, documentary analysis and focus group. The main findings of the study were that enterprise support organisations have bespoke programmes aimed at supporting small businesses in Ghana. These programmes were mainly training and financial support. The key challenge they face is the poor attitude of owner managers to their programmes. It was also revealed that the some of the owner managers find it difficult accessing the programmes of the enterprise support organisations because of problems such as inadequate awareness creations, commercialization of training programmes, high cost of accessing finance among others. Apart from these challenges, it was realised that many other challenges such as poor national infrastructure, poor attitude of employees, high rent charges and stiff competition from foreign products. However, the study realised that the owner managers have put measures in place to deal with these challenges in order to survive. It was therefore commended among other things that there should be a central body responsible for the coordination of all activities which are geared towards the development of entrepreneurship. Thus the study contributes to knowledge by developed a framework for entrepreneurship development in Ghana and the developing world. Moreover, there is the application of institutional theory to the study of entrepreneurship development in Ghana, which is unprecedented.
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ORCID for M. Karatas-Ozkan: orcid.org/0000-0002-9199-4156

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