Agribusiness entrepreneurship in Tanzania

project summary

Donor agencies and developing country governments have started to target agroindustry private sector development and agribusiness. Entrepreneurship, innovation, and change have become major imperatives for enhancing sector performance and stimulating socio-economic development. Yet little is known about the nature of the entrepreneur and firm-level innovation processes within the specific business setting of agricultural value chains in developing countries. On the one hand, development studies have historically focused on innovation systems and value chain development on a macro- and meso level, providing limited insight into the entrepreneur and firm-level innovation processes. On the other hand, entrepreneurship and innovation have received sustained interest from economists, sociologists and management scholars, but studies are largely limited to the developed country firm and Western approaches. For this reason the aim of the PhD project is to link the disciplines and investigate the nature and background of agribusiness entrepreneurs in least developed countries. The research plan includes a discussion of theoretical background, a review of existing studies, and the collection of empirical data on Tanzanian agribusiness entrepreneurs.