Firms development in sub-saharan Africa in environmental constraints

Abstract

In an economic and entrepreneurial environment that is increasingly competitive, but still characterised by a form of uncertainty and unpredictability, it is clear that african enterprises, like firms in developing countries,must demonstrate adaptability, precaution and even anticipation.The present doctoral work addresses several themes related to this observation, which are closely linked to the notion of the management of constraints by the firm in its development cycle. In otherwords, this thesis addresses the impact of environmental constraints on the development of firms in Sub-Saharan Africa. It thus aims to shed light on this debate in the African context by proposing three empirical essays.It is structured around four chapters, including an introductory chapter (chapter1) which motivates the thesis by describing the characteristics, the entrepreneurial landscape and some of the main bottlenecks affecting the development of African firms. The next three chapters bring toget her the contributions of this thesis to the literature. Thus, chapter 2 examines, from as ample of MSMEs, the determinants of the financials tructure of firms in Côte d’Ivoire. Chapter 3 empirically analyses the resilience and rebound capacity of Ivorian firms in the aftermath of the post-electoralcrisis of 2011, which left more than 3,000 people dead and 735,000refugees. Chapter 4 examines, from a larges ampl eof firms, the effects of the duality of the Senegalese tax system on the performance of firms and on Senegalese tax revenues.