The discourse on entrepreneurship in emerging economies often presents a dichotomy between structural constraints and individual agency. This perspective piece examines the dynamic interplay of these forces within the Ghanaian business environment over a transformative period. This article aims to synthesise existing literature and observational data to develop a nuanced framework for understanding how Ghanaian entrepreneurs navigate institutional voids, infrastructural deficits, and cultural norms while exercising strategic agency to build and sustain enterprises. The perspective is constructed through a critical synthesis of longitudinal case studies, industry reports, and policy documents, analysed via an institutional theory lens to identify persistent patterns and adaptive strategies. A dominant theme is the strategic 'informal-formal' hybridity adopted by firms, where an estimated 60-70% of surveyed medium-sized enterprises maintain parallel operational structures to leverage both formal market advantages and informal network resilience. Entrepreneurial success is reconceptualised not as a triumph over constraints, but as a continuous process of negotiation and adaptation within a complex socio-economic structure. Policymakers should focus on creating more permeable boundaries between formal and informal sectors, and financial institutions ought to develop credit assessment models that recognise hybrid business logics. institutional theory, entrepreneurial agency, structural constraints, hybrid organisations, business strategy This paper provides a novel synthesis of longitudinal observational data to propose the 'adaptive hybridity' framework, which explains how firms strategically navigate institutional complexity.
Asante et al. (Fri,) studied this question.