Scaling Up or Not – That Is the Question: Rural Entrepreneurship in Sub-Saharan Africa

In this chapter, we discuss place based and placeless rural entrepreneurship in Tanzania, and their potential to contribute to the nation’s ambition to take the step from low-middle-income country to a middle-income country, and from an economy primarily based on agriculture to one based on the manufacturing of goods. We know that an up-scaled industrialised agro-food chain is much needed, but show how a standardised, westernised economic model based on up-scaling is not enough to explain what is required to develop a country like Tanzania. Because the rural is diverse, business solutions must be diverse to create economic growth and creation of jobs but also contribute to the alleviation of poverty. In the rural, social benefits are equally relevant and may override economic benefits. Therefore, first we explain how place-based entrepreneurship, because of its rich production of different values like social, societal, sustainability, and economic, work in tandem with up-scaled business to develop rural places. Second, we show how up-scaled businesses is an outcome of society, including an enabling legal and regulatory environment, good access to physical infrastructure and workplaces, strong entrepreneurship culture and markets, and well-functioning access to finance for SMEs. Overall, we have shown how the Tanzanian policy answer to a very different situation compared to the objectives highlighted in Western-focused research about rural policy. The latter is strictly business related, and a limited challenge compared to the one in Tanzania. Overall, we have established the importance of considering the institutional context in rural entrepreneurship.