Entrepreneurship and Innovation in Sierra Leone: A Case Study of Africa Felix Juice LLP

Part I - Case Study

Africa Felix Juice LLP is the first commercial fruit juice concentrate manufacturer in Sierra Leone, a West African country that has undergone more than a decade of post-war rebuilding. Launched in January 2011 it provides a very high-volume market to smallholder farmers in rural villages, uses local trucks for pick up and transportation of fruits to the factory, and makes immediate payment of the goods and services. The manufactured and packaged juice is exported to European supermarkets. It is an example of how an entrepreneur can successfully create a small manufacturing enterprise in a post-conflict context.

Sierra Leone is a West African country that is blessed with natural resources such as agriculture (e.g. fruits, rice, coffee and cocoa) and minerals (e.g. iron ore and petroleum production). However, it suffered a bloody civil war between 1991 and 2002, resulting in political and economic instability. The education system was destroyed and there was a sudden increase in poverty and illiteracy. According to the 2012 World Development Indicators, 66.4% of the population of 5.5 million people were living under the national poverty line in 2003, and only 39% were literate (this means that about 61% of the population had not completed secondary school). After the war, various elected governments initiated and implemented major post-war rebuilding reforms.

In fact, many commentators credit the opportunity spotted by the founders of Africa Felix Juice LLP to the government’s reforms – re-instating a country-wide tree planting project initiated in the 1970s but abandoned during the war, the refurbishment of the main roads to ease logistics and distribution channels and authorization of First Step Inc., located in the outskirts of the capital Freetown, as the country’s first Special Economic Zone. The main objective of these reforms was to attract foreign investments to help stimulate domestic economic activity and local development.

These interventions by government institutions are encouraging opportunity-driven entrepreneurial innovation in the sense that those individuals who are able to spot an entrepreneurial opportunity have confidence that the government will support them in creating and operating their enterprise.

Describe the institutional context in which Africa Felix Juice LLP was created in Sierra Leone, (10 Marks).

Explain context and examine how different type of contexts can influence entrepreneurial innovation. And

What evidence of entrepreneurial innovation can you identify in the case study providing explanation of the challenges faced by the company and how they were overcome? (25 Marks)

Part Ii: Essay Questions

There is an existing debate about the best way to run a commercial business.

• Explain family business and corporate business; provide advantages and disadvantages for both models from literature and textbook.
• Are family businesses better than corporations are? Support your answer by evidence from research and literature provided for you in your textbook and/or external sources.

Explain with examples the following two cultural dimensions (15 marks)

Explain two cultural dimensions impact on innovation and entrepreneurship for nations indicating which dimension is better (take a country as an example on each dimension for illustration). Support your answer with evidence from textbook and literature (20 marks)

• Masculinity Vs. Femininity
• Collectivism Vs. Individualism