Entrepreneurship in Côte d'Ivoire: Exploring Colonial, Cultural, and Religious Influences on Entrepreneurial Engagement

Purpose This paper critically examines how colonial history, cultural values, and religious influences intersect to shape entrepreneurship in Côte d'Ivoire. Adopting a decolonial perspective, it explores how the legacies of colonial extraction and postcolonial governance continue to structure entrepreneurial opportunities, while local cultural and spiritual traditions generate alternative logics of value creation. Design/methodology/approach Using qualitative storytelling and six narrative vignettes of Ivorian entrepreneurs from diverse sectors, the study demonstrates how decolonial analysis can illuminate situated forms of agency. Storytelling is used not simply as a means of illustrating practice but as a decolonial methodology that reclaims local voice, recognises plural epistemologies, and privileges moral, cultural, and historical depth. Findings The analysis identifies three interconnected mechanisms through which coloniality is reinterpreted and contested in everyday entrepreneurial life: the reclamation of colonial infrastructures for local production; the moralisation of governance through faith-based ethics; and the mobilisation of collective finance traditions rooted in reciprocity and social trust. Entrepreneurs rework inherited systems by embedding cultural meaning, stewardship, and communal responsibility into their ventures. Page 1 of 45 http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/ijebr International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behavior & Research 123456789 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behavior & Research 2 Originality/value This study advances decolonial entrepreneurship scholarship by showing how Ivorian entrepreneurs transform inherited colonial structures through culturally grounded and spiritually informed practices. It also demonstrates how vignette-based storytelling serves as a decolonial methodology that foregrounds situated knowledge and challenges universalist, Western-centric assumptions about entrepreneurial success.