Religion and spiritual influence on Igbo entrepreneurial behaviour and persistence

Abstract

This article examines how religiosity and spirituality influence entrepreneurial behaviour. The focus is on indigenous Igbos in Nigeria. Igbos are famous for successfully establishing transgenerational business legacies and indigenous enterprise clusters across West Africa. They are also notorious for their cultural devotion and belief in Chi or Chukwu (God), alusi (gods, spirits or deities), ndi ichie (ancestors) and the oracle. Hence, the majority of Igbo personal names contain the word ‘Chi’. Igbo cultural values are based on the spiritual maxims of ‘Onye a Hana Nwanne ya’ (don’t leave your brother behind), ‘Onye biri ebeya biri’ (live and let live) and ‘Akuruno’ (make wealth reach home). These charactertics make the Igbos a unique population, which allows us to examine the links between their entrepreneurial behaviour, religion and spirituality. Using a qualitative design (interviews), we analyzed expert data provided by 34 Igbo entrepreneurs to clarify these links. The findings reveal that ‘other-worldly’ and ‘this-worldly’ orientation are the two main forces that influence entrepreneurial behaviour. An ‘other-worldly’ orientation influences entrepreneurial behaviour such that the pursuit of a family business lifestyle has become the norm. Also, ‘this-worldly’ orientation influences entrepreneurial behaviour that is associated with risk-taking, informal entrepreneurial learning, community-based entrepreneurship, social responsibility, etc.