Entrepreneurs in Africa<b> – the agenda for Business History in Africa: Complexity and continuity</b>

Abstract Africa has been the location of centuries of business activity. African business displays a complex development path through early indigenous kingdoms, colonial control and post–1950 independence. The historiography on these developments is unbalanced in favour of the role performed by enterprises embedded in capitalist metropolitan economies. Complex and dynamic African entrepreneurial activity persisted but adapted to global market changes. Business historians have not systematically explored African agencies in business, the management systems and the organisational evolution of enterprise in Africa. As market liberalisation provided new business opportunities, African businesses emerged to complement and compete with foreign-owned enterprises. As market liberalisation stimulated globalisation, multi-national companies returned to African markets, fostering competition and collaboration. Changes in the political economy of many African states gave rise to more dynamic regulatory contexts and public-private partnerships in different sectors of developing African economies. These trends appear in the Business History of Africa from the perspective of African business, owned by Africans from diverse ethnic origins as proof of the complex trends and processes in African enterprise development. This contribution seeks to refine the focus on business and entrepreneurs in Africa as agents in the continent’s business landscape. The manuscript acknowledges the diversity among African entrepreneurs and the dynamically changing state-business nexus through history. Can one identify a distinct «African» nature of enterprise? This manuscript addresses aspects of conceptual clarity on what constitutes African business in an attempt to map the agenda for Business History in Africa.