Discuss any five reasons why sole proprietorship is most common in west African countries​

TRUST- Because of generally high levels of corruption, high unethical behavior, low levels of integrity as well as non-existent paths to recourse when harm has been done, most entrepreneurs feel that the risks brought by collaboration far outweigh the returns and hence venture out on their own.

A lot of seasoned scammers and impatient investors are always out to take the most out of a partners effort as soon as possible rather than wait on a bigger piece of the pie. This trait shows itself in everything right from education, business and even how governments are run. This means that business partners more often than not are always out to see who screws the other more.

Compare this to the older U.S where initially handshake agreements were deemed final and any deviation from verbal agreements would mean a person cannot be trusted and hence damage your reputation irreversibly, of course this has changed with immigration and rise of global trade meaning a movement to paper contracts and a bigger cheque to lawyers.

A lot of Africans also have a negative attitude and always tell-off new ideas or discourage any disruptive thinking or risk. This leads to risk-takers often venturing out on their own.

Of course it’s harder to grow as a single unit and keep a cash-flow healthy enough to expand and survive and this explains the small number of global players from the African commercial sector.