The effects of opportunity motivation and environmental contingencies on market growth strategies of African early-stage entrepreneurs

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to examine how early-stage entrepreneurs' opportunity motivation impacts their choice of market growth strategies as well as the contingent roles of institutional environments and product market conditions in Africa. Design/methodology/approach - The study employs hierarchical linear modeling to test multilevel models with nested data empirically. Findings - The findings show that African early-stage entrepreneurs who are opportunity-driven and from countries with strong institutional environments have a higher tendency to adopt market exploration strategies. African early-stage entrepreneurs from countries with strong product market conditions have a higher tendency to adopt market penetration strategies. Further interaction tests show that both contingency conditions, namely institutional environments and product market conditions, moderate the effects of opportunity motivation on market growth strategies of African early-stage entrepreneurs. Practical implications - The study shows that policymakers in Africa need to develop flexible, supportive market-related policies based on entrepreneurs' growth paths, institutional environments and product market conditions. Originality/value - The study is the first to explore multilevel influences on early-stage entrepreneurs' market growth strategies in Africa. It sheds new insights on the entrepreneurial marketing process of early-stage entrepreneurs in Africa.