Patriotic entrepreneurship: Bedrock for
development
The world over, the role of patriotism in starting, operating and growing businesses (ie,
patriotic entrepreneurship) is largely overlooked in entrepreneurship discussions within
academia, private and public sectors.
What is excessively spoken about are entrepreneurial tenets such as risk taking,
alertness, creativity, innovation, value addition, commercialisation, persistence,
hardworking and profit seeking amongst others.
There is a strong misconception that “patriotism” should be restricted to politics; hence,
when patriotism is spoken about, it is usual to hear some within the business fraternity
say don’t mix business with politics. Yet business and politics are inseparable, anyway,
this is a subject for another day.
Given this trajectory, it is high time that we as Zimbabwean entrepreneurs take stock of
our patriotic entrepreneurship and envisage how this impacts positively or negatively in
achieving our national strategic vision — Zimbabwe a middle income by the year 2030.
Before unpacking patriotic entrepreneurship, let us firstly explain some key terms:
Entrepreneurship and Intrapreneurship.
The term entrepreneurship is commonly defined as a process of being creative and
innovative in starting and growing new businesses profitably, competitively and
sustainably.
Apart from being closely associated with new business start-up and growth,
entrepreneurship is also predominantly associated with micro, small and medium
enterprises (SMEs).
Because entrepreneurship inevitably involves creativity and innovation, its’ very close
association with SMEs implies that significant innovation and creativity occurs amongst
SMEs. Notably, entrepreneurship is more synonymous with SMEs and in general, they
tend to be more creative than large enterprises.
Several factors make SMEs more creative and innovative and these include having
limited financial and material resources, having more informal communication, being
less bureaucratic, flexible organizational structures and decision making largely reposed
in a single person: the owner manager.
These factors tell a single story, that is, because SMEs have to compete in the market
with constrained capabilities, to survive and prosper, they incline themselves to be more
agile, creative and innovative by setting up less bureaucratic structures and increasing
more informal communication.
Further, the owner/manager, who is usually the chief executive officer and sole decision
maker is mostly involved with entire business operations and as such is readily available
to pass a decision on spot. There is more on the job learning in SMEs which therefore,
promotes significant trial and error thereby ultimately buttressing creativity and
innovation.
The above sharply contrasts with the more formal and bureaucratic communication and
structures in large enterprises, which to make matters worse, usually have various
centres of power and decision making, for example, various senior managers and
divisional heads or directors.
Business processes are mostly formalised with rigorous internal controls and with little
if not no room for learning on the job. Unless occurring under specifically approved
projects, such as new product development test runs, trial and error are very much
limited and mistakes are significantly punished.
Further, with the exception of large enterprises which are learning organisations, the
tradition is that employees do not fully tape into their creativity and innovation and all
they predominantly do is routinely discharge their duties in conformity with their stated
job descriptions. However, management, especially senior executives have the latitude to
exercise their creativity and innovation and direct subordinates accordingly.
Nevertheless, although large enterprises are less synonymous with entrepreneurship,
they still are creative and innovative. This is because being creative and innovative is not
a monopoly of SMEs.
Even though employees in large enterprises might find it challenging to be fully creative
and innovative given constraints of their rigid and formalist job descriptions, they still
can be creative and innovative whenever they are afforded the opportunity to do so, for
example, when put into teams to solve identified business problems.
Annual strategic planning workshops also provide a golden opportunity to employees to
demonstrate their creativity and innovation as they usually suggest novel ideas during
such workshops.
Consequently, it is a fact that large enterprises are known to draw on the creativity of
their managerial and non-managerial employees, senior executive and non-executives
to drive creativity and innovation leading to novel business processes.
All this is referred to as intrapreneurship, that is, risk taking to competitively and
sustainably exercise creativity and innovation within an existing business, whereas for
entrepreneurship such creativity and innovation is directed towards starting and
growing a new business.
However, in general, the private and public sectors rarely talk about the term
intrapreneurship preferring to use entrepreneurship as a term with a broad meaning that
incorporates intrapreneurship. Therefore, in this article, entrepreneurship carries this
inclusive broad meaning.
Notwithstanding the differences between entrepreneurship and intrapreneurship, what
is common in SMEs and large enterprises is the primary purpose of profitably and
sustainably producing various products and services to meet the socio-economic needs
of the country and doing so better than competition.
In the end the production activities of SMEs and large enterprises advance the quality of
life for citizens. Consequently, when as Zimbabweans we aspire to be a middle income by
the year 2030, we are at the same time bestowing significant responsibilities to our SMEs
and large enterprises to be more effective in their entrepreneurship and produce high
quality and competitive products and services that can help us grow our economy and
advance the quality of our lives.
Interestingly, when the world looks at what SMEs and large enterprises should do in
terms of succeeding in their entrepreneurship, it predominantly considers all factors
that fall under characteristics of a successful entrepreneur while circumventing or
paying very little attention to the key factor of patriotism.
Having engaged and reviewed the entrepreneurship discourse, from the best of my
knowledge, I have not come across academic articles, entrepreneurship text books,
business conferences that devote much space to patriotic entrepreneurship.
Globally, entrepreneurship success is widely understood from the perspective of
shrewdness, risk propensity, entrepreneurial opportunity recognition and exploitation,
cashflows, profitability, shareholder value, market share, innovation, upscaling,
proficiency in adapting to the complex and dynamic macroenvironment, bouncing back
from failure and long-term business viability.
True, all these factors indeed indicate one’s entrepreneurial prowess but what is very
surprising and conspicuous by its absence is how patriotism rarely features among the
criteria for entrepreneurial success.
Yet, before one becomes an entrepreneur, first they belong to a nation and are inevitably
bred and cultured in a specific nation-hood. In our case as Zimbabweans, “ubuntu” is a
timeless ideology that not only distinguish us as Africans from other races of the world
but also shapes and fosters our mindset and behaviour in the family, neighbourhood,
community, business, society and the world at large.
Consequently, for every entrepreneur, having a strong affinity for their nation and being
incessantly drawn to find ways to be creative and innovative to effectively address
challenges in their country’s economy is not imaginary, neither far-fetched but a
lifelong aspiration, passion and burden.
This strong affinity to one’s country and its political-socioeconomic issues thereof
reflects what patriotism is all about. Patriotism leads to unquestionable loyalty to one’s
motherland; subordinating personal desires and preferences to national interests and
joining hands with the entire citizenry to achieve the motherland’s national vision and
strategic objectives.
Importantly, patriotism is not a phenomenon that is only spoken about and
demonstrated in the political sphere but should in equal measure be alive
Given the above, it is, therefore, crucial and logical to question how patriotic are we as
Zimbabwean entrepreneurs? To what extent do we subordinate our profiteering motives
to the advancement of our national interest?
What do our behaviours in the market reveal about the kind and degree of our patriotism:
Strongly patriotic or strongly dissenting. Of course, strongly patriotic here includes
persistent optimism, constructive engagement and criticism, proffering creative and
innovative alternatives to advance our national interests.
In sharp contrast, strongly dissenting encompasses perennial pessimism, murmuring,
gossiping, name labelling, non-stop opposing and indulging in zero sum game market
behaviours.
I can go on raising questions but to remain succinct my final two questions are:
Considering the brave decision our government made to address the land question, it
being a fundamental means of entrepreneurship, what importance do we as Zimbabwean
entrepreneurs-businessmen and businesswomen attach to patriotism as we operate our
businesses?
Further, how best can we exercise and strengthen our patriotism in the execution of our
entrepreneurship?
Notably, interrogating our approach to entrepreneurship in such a candid manner is of
paramount importance especially considering that our strategic economic trajectory as a
nation, courtesy of the new dispensation and the second republic under President
Mnangagwa is not only well crafted but already under execution with some demonstrable
milestone successes.
Further, in this new era geared towards high national economic performance, whose key
strategic motto is Zimbabwe is Open for Business and the strategic philosophy ‘‘Nyika
inovakwa nevene vayo” all birthed by our President, Mnangagwa, patriotic
entrepreneurship has to, should be and must indeed define how we conduct business.
To attest this, let us pause for some few seconds and objectively think seriously about
this ideology “Nyika inovakwa nevene vayo”.
Honestly, it is as clear as the distinction between day and night that “vene ve nyika” can
only effectively and successfully build their country if and only if they are patriotic.
Therefore, it is not superficial to infer that although patriotic entrepreneurship is largely
overlooked globally in the entrepreneurship discourse in academia, private and public
sector corridors, actually, without it, the strategic vision for the socio-economic
development of any country either dies in still birth fashion or if it sees the light of day,
its execution is lethargic.
The net effect are mediocre results which leaves the majority citizenry querying; Its
entrepreneurship by who and for who? Dr Tafataona Mahoso and the late Dr Vimbai
Chivaura and the late Professor Ushewunesu Mupepereki (May their souls rest in eternal
peace) correctly interject labelling such entrepreneurship as “Kuembisiwa” in their
impactful and patriotic programme, zvaVanhu. For this reason, to avoid “Kuembisiwa”
in entrepreneurship, our second republic has since ushered in the mantra “leaving no
one behind”.
Therefore, to ensure you do not remain behind, interrogate your patriotism in all your
endeavours whether you are an individual, an SME or a large enterprise entrepreneur. To
be continued….
Dr Charles Dahwa provides cutting edge consultancy in Research, Strategy, Entrepreneurship and
SME Development, Marketing, HRM and Corporate Governance. He recently graduated with a PhD
in Management from Manchester Metropolitan University, (UK) and is contactable on/Email:
sbgz2022@gmail.com Mobile: +263 71 370 2933-The Herald
