African Innovation and Entrepreneurship (AfrIE) Workshop in Ghana

Rationale and Motivation for the Workshop

Recent scholarly work identifies a deep divide between the Northern and Southern hemispheres (Bruton et al., 2021; Hamann et al., 2020; Simba, 2026). It highlights theoretical perspectives developed based on the Western context as dominant within the economic and social transactions discourse. Such Western views are universally applied in research, with little sensitivity to contextual differences. The tendency in existing scholarly research is to make cosmetic changes and force–fit theory to phenomena.

Starting from the theory rather than the phenomenon also runs the risk of overlooking important aspects of structural problems that are simply not on the radar of social scientists brought up in Western societies and trained in Western research institutions. One of the reasons for the predominance of Western theories is that high–level research is driven mainly by researchers from the West, while African voices (with the exception of Egypt and South Africa) are largely absent. A fact that, in turn, can be attributed to the lack of support for graduate students or appropriate doctoral programs and supervisor training, leading to poor-quality education and inequality. The agenda for the AfrIEHub is to continue to address some of these issues with the following objectives:

1. The overarching goal of the AfrIEHub’s workshop in Ghana is to make research on innovation and entrepreneurship in Africa more inclusive and impactful.
2. In collaboration with the University of Ghana Business School, and the NTU Eastern Africa Centre, the AfrIEHub workshop brings scholars, students, and higher education institutions (HEIs) from Africa, Europe, and the USA onto a round table to enable reverse learning and genuine cross–fertilisation of ideas between scholars, students, and commentators in a way that advances African innovation and entrepreneurship research.
3. The AfrIE HUB endeavours to foster an environment for enabling capacity and capability development in innovation and entrepreneurship research.
4. The long-term goal is to build a critical mass of skilled supervisors and establish benchmarks for doctoral supervision/research to ensure consistency and quality of African innovation and entrepreneurship research.
5. The AfrIE HUB is committed to enabling knowledge sharing and exchange in a way that facilitates ground–breaking research underpinned by strong PhD programmes for students and supervisors in Africa. Its goals align with NTU’s Strategy 2026 - 2031

At NBS, the AfrIE Initiative alone has a starting population of 4 PhD students studying women healthcare workers and social innovation in Uganda; women entrepreneurs and informal financing; digital technology, SMEs, and human resource management; and Kante weavers in Ghana. Building on the anticipated growth and existing PhD student population at NTU, the AfrIE HUB’s directorate envisages that, as the only visible outpost for African research covering the whole of sub–Saharan Africa, the initiative will cultivate an identity for the academic community at NTU, the University of Ghana Business School, Wits Business School in South Africa. It will provide a platform for 32 faculty members at NBS and potentially 52 other members identified in other schools at NTU, including health and sociology. These scholars are already involved in research covering various topics, e.g., global health, sexual health and gender violence, that touch on aspects of African innovation and entrepreneurship. The following bullet points summarise the potential beneficiaries of the AfrIE workshop’s anticipated activities:

• NTU’s EAC members
• University of Ghana Business School students and staff
• Wits Business School Staff
• African scholars and students