Commonsense suggests, and academic studies agree, that an ameliorative business environment enables entrepreneurial activity and boosts enterprise performance. This paper examines the business environment in southeast Nigeria, using two separate but complementary studies. Defined in terms of infrastructure, access to credit, bureaucratic practices and regulatory policy, the business environment in southeast Nigeria is stressful, and so has the capacity to limit entrepreneurial activity. This stressful business environment, which is a nationwide phenomenon, poses obstacles to Nigeria's industrial development.
Investment in medium and large-scale manufacturing enterprises by Nigerian
entrepreneurs has continued to grow; but little is known about their
organisation and management in general, or the nature of working conditions
and employee commitment in particular. This study examines the
relationship between working conditions and employee commitment in
twenty indigenously owned private manufacturing firms in Igbo states of
southeastern Nigeria. The findings show that these firms have the potential
to contribute to the industrial future of the country. However, a substantial
number of their workers were dissatisfied with the extrinsic and equity factors
of their work, which are stronger predictors of employee commitment than
the intrinsic/responsibility component. To build a viable workforce for enterprise
success and industrial development, entrepreneurs should invest in the
long-term goals of their workers, and learn to balance their own interests
with those of their employees.
Africa's dismal economic performance is directly attributable to its weakness in the production and use of modern technology. Even Nigeria, a country with immense human and material resources, coupled with significant scientific infrastructure, has not yet been able to manage the all-important technological leap forward. The situation was different in Biafra , when indigenous scientists and engineers performed socially relevant science without the preconditions conventionally perceived as necessary for technological development. Anchored in structuration theory, this article explores the sociology of scientific and technological practice in Biafra, outlines the achievements of Biafran scientists and engineers, and offers explanationsof why the Biafran technological success has not been replicable in post-civil war Nigeria. Discussion concludes with a suggestion for developmentdriven geopolitical restructuring.The literature on development, especially from the 1960s through the 1980s, has emphasized several perceived obstacles to technological development in [4][5][6] 2003
. This article reflects on my experience as a young accounts clerk in the Biafran office of Research and Production (RAP),where I observed firsthand the magic of will and the power of social capital to evoke the best of human potentialities. I thank Simon Ottenberg, whose pioneering work on Igbo institutions and culture providedme with the rightforum and motivationfinally to write this presentwork, which had lingered in my mind since the end of the Nigerian-Biafran war in 1970. Thanksalso to Christian Iroegbu, Emmanuel Enekwechi, Emmanuel Nnadozie, Ebere Onwudiwe, Chudi Uwazuruike, and Ifeanyi Uzoka for the series of informal discussions and conversations that directly and indirectly helped to crystallize my idea, and to Gale Bandsma and Elaine Force for their secretarial help. I thank the anonymous reviewers of Social Forces for their help in sharpening my thoughts. Direct correspondence to Chikwendu Christian Ukaegbu,
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