Failure Factors among Entrepreneurs in Zambia: A Systematic Literature Review

Abstract

Causes of entrepreneurship failure is a new field of research, especially in Zambia. Indeed, few studies have set out to study it, few studies have set themselves the objective of studying it. This article aims to explain the failure of newly created enterprises, focusing on small businesses. Small businesses constitute the absolute majority of the businesses that make up the Zambian economic fabric. Similarly, studies have shown that the first five years, which corresponds to the start- up period, represent the duration beyond which the majority of the businesses created do not manage to survive. A total of 25 peer reviewed journal articles and other publications were reviewed in order to obtain clear understanding of business failure causes. Journal articles extracted from Goggle scholar, Research gate, Semantic Scholar and JSTOR formed the literature review. The analysis has raised several conclusions that can help to better understand of this type of failure. Small businesses disappear suddenly for several reasons, in particular the lack of entrepreneurship training prior to starting an enterprise, lack of knowledge of available opportunities for business and inability for budding entrepreneurs to take calculated risks rank among the key causes of entrepreneurial failure