Entrepreneurship and Institutions in Innovation systems research: Evidence from the Nigerian film industry

Abstract

As the innovation systems approach becomes increasingly transferred from developed to developing countries as a framework for achieving increased productivity, the notion of deficient institutions becomes more important. Prior research on innovation systems has adopted a broad treatment of institutions that has resulted in an omission of the impact that deficient institutions have on implementing innovation. Towards providing a treatment of institutions that is more specific and by extension, accounts for the impact of deficient institutions within developing country innovation systems, this thesis on the account of both the personcentric characteristic of the entrepreneur and the entrepreneur’s ability to deal with uncertainty focused on answering the research question: How do entrepreneurs deal with deficient institutions in developing country innovation systems in order to introduce innovation? By considering the context of the Nigerian film industry innovation system, this thesis showed that entrepreneurs dealt with the deficient institutions by substituting them with informal institutions during their interactions with Nigerian actors, and with formal institutions that looked to be external to the Nigerian environment when interacting with international actors. In addition to this, the decision to use these institutions was seen to have been influenced by both the situations that the entrepreneurs faced and their personal experiences personal experiences. By showing this, the thesis contributed to the literature on innovation systems by providing a more nuanced understanding of institutions in comparison with what previously existed. Another contribution was the introduction of agency (through analytical focus on the entrepreneur) within innovation systems research.