Towards a Theory of Contextualised Entrepreneurial Ecosystems: An Indigenous Framework for Sub-Saharan African Emerging Markets

This dissertation develops an original theoretical framework for entrepreneurial ecosystems grounded in the institutional, cultural, and developmental conditions of Sub-Saharan African emerging markets, using Nigeria as the primary empirical anchoring case. Existing entrepreneurial ecosystem theories, including Isenberg's pillars model and Stam's systemic framework, were developed from high-income country evidence and incorporate assumptions about institutional completeness, formal finance access, and digital infrastructure that do not hold in most African contexts. The dissertation argues that these theories produce misdiagnosed ecosystem interventions when applied uncritically to African contexts and proposes a theoretically original framework built from the African evidence up. The theoretical contribution is developed through four phases: a systematic critical review of existing ecosystem theories, identifying their unstated contextual assumptions; a multi-site comparative study of entrepreneurial ecosystem dynamics in Lagos, Kano, Enugu, and Maiduguri using a novel boundary-spanning interview and observation methodology; inductive framework construction through constant comparative analysis of findings across the four sites; and formal framework validation through expert panel review using a modified Delphi technique with 30 ecosystem scholars and practitioners. The proposed Contextualised African Entrepreneurial Ecosystem framework introduces original concepts including informal institutional infrastructure, community solidarity capital, necessity-to-opportunity entrepreneurship transition dynamics, and ecosystem resilience under conflict stress. Each concept is defined, theoretically grounded, and empirically illustrated. The framework offers a generative reorientation of ecosystem theory for the African context. Keywords: entrepreneurial ecosystem theory, Sub-Saharan Africa, indigenous framework, institutional context, Nigeria.