Rural Entrepreneurship and Innovation in BRICS Economies: Secondary Evidence from Rural Areas in South Africa

It has been propagated by scholars and practitioners that entrepreneurship and innovation are potent tools that can be harnessed to transform rural areas, grow rural economies, create jobs, and enhance the prospects of attaining sustainable development goals (SDGs). Subsequently, these disciplines have garnered attention from researchers for virtually a century. Nonetheless, these researchers often focused on entrepreneurship and innovation activities in urban areas, thereby neglecting entrepreneurship and innovation activities in rural areas. Thus, there is a paucity of literature on rural entrepreneurship and innovation in the BRICS economies. Within the context of the agency theory and the Triple Helix Model of industrial policy, this study systematically reviews the literature on rural entrepreneurship and innovation in the Republic of South Africa. The study revealed that rural firms are risk-averse, which challenges the doctrine of rural transformation through rural entrepreneurship and innovation. Moreover, the ability to engage in entrepreneurship and innovation by rural firms is highly dependent on the availability of support from the government and actor networks. Subsequently, rural firms fail when support has been phased out. Thus, the government and actor networks should do things differently, with an emphasis on teaching rural firms to be independent and sustainable entrepreneurs and innovators.