Researcher Robbi Cuijpers arrived in Tanzania!

Unemployment

Despite the great source of new opportunities created by the technological revolution of the twentieth century, more than 1,3 billion people live on a budget of less than 1$ a day, a standard of living that Europe and the U.S reached 200 years ago (Frankfurter Algemeine Zeitung, 1999). In East- Africa, unemployment, underemployment and poverty levels have remained at extreme high levels and are still increasing despite national government and international development agencies dedicated substantial effort to encourage sustainable development (Economic Commission for Africa-ECA, 2002). There is an increasing concern over the tragic waste of human potential, particularly for the youth.

East African Youth

Research indicates that the majority of the East African youth is unemployed, underemployed or in other cases overworked under poor working conditions (Semboja, 2007). Due to the aforementioned phenomena a large part of the youth in East Africa is therefore forced into self-employment in the informal sector as it is perceived as the only available route out of poverty (Egulu, 2004). In other words, the majority of the youth in question do not start a business because they are ‘pulled’ by lucrative opportunities, but rather ‘pushed’ out of economic necessity (Chigunta, 2002).

Entrepreneurial Motivations

The motivation behind a person’s decision to engage in entrepreneurial activities is shown to be a strong predictor of his or her start-up’s outcomes (Wiklund and Shepherd 2003; Cassar 2007: Hessels 2008). Putting it differently, an aspirant entrepreneur’s motivation usually reflects his or her company’s goals and therefore will conduct his or her business accordingly. By means of illustration, consider an aspiring entrepreneur moved by his desire to become rich as opposed to another one who is self-employed solely out of necessity in order to survive. Following a logic line of reasoning, it is expected that those two opposing motivations will also bring about different start-up outcomes (Hessels, 2008). Shane (2003) confirms this by adding that there is a need for research that considers how entrepreneurial motivations influence entrepreneurial decisions.

Research

The objective of this paper is to illuminate the influence of a youth entrepreneur’s motivation to start a business on his or her start-up’s outcomes within Tanzania. Questions that can arise are:  Is there a line of consistency between people who create business in order to survive and their company’s outcomes? Do ‘pulled’ entrepreneurs have more success with their business than ‘pushed’ entrepreneurs do? And how can we actually define the success of a SME in the context of a developing country like Tanzania?