Many developing countries have not benefited from the technological changes that have taken place over the last 30 years. Uganda has been no exception. The country continues to have over 30 percent of its people below the poverty line. This is despite the appropriateness of macro economic policy and government action in many of these countries. Even in the developed countries, slowness in growth has been attributed to lack of enterprise rather than policy and government action. For this reason, governments and multilateral institutions like the World Bank, have attributed the continued poverty or the slow growth to other factors like governance, institutions but more importantly, entrepreneurship. Classical, and indeed neo-classical economists, did not pay much attention to entrepreneurship as a determinant of growth and therefore this relationship has not been explored in most of the research that has attempted to explain determinants of economic growth. It was Schumpeter who suggested that the entrepreneur had a role in economic growth but no empirical studies have been undertaken to verify this. Thus was until recently when the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) studies were initiated in 1999 led by Paul Reynolds who had done some previous research in this area. The current GEM studies have focused on small firms and yet the model has existing large firms. This study identifies this gap and it is that gap that the study attempts to explain. Having no firm theoretical foundation, the study adopted an inductive approach using mainly qualitative techniques but also adopted quantitative techniques given the nature of the relationship among the variables. Theoretical sampling was used initially to identify the study population. The study identified large scale portfolio entrepreneurs as a unit of analysis and Uganda being a small country, it was possible to assume some kind of laboratory conditions in which the study was undertaken. The study’s overall aim was to establish whether a relationship existed between entrepreneurship and economic growth. To achieve this, the study examined the patterns of growth in the Uganda economy between 1962-2005, the opportunities, the macro economic policy in place, the opportunities that emerged and the role of the entrepreneur in those conditions. The study also examined the emergence of new industries in the economy, the start-ups and exits of firms in the respective industries and the role of the entrepreneur and how this related to economic growth. To secure the data, the study used a case study design for portfolio entrepreneurs combined with a survey for small and medium and corporate entrepreneurs. Unstructured interviews were conducted with portfolio entrepreneurs and self administered questionnaires were used for the other respondents. Secondary data were collected from numerous published sources. The study confirmed that there existed a relationship between macro economic policy and economic growth which confirmed assertions by mainstream economists. The study also established that a relationship existed between entrepreneurship and economic growth. The Uganda economy as a small economy gives that ability to see the relationship. The study reveals, using the Uganda economy, that large scale portfolio entrepreneurs have an important role to play in orchestrating economic growth through their activities of start-up, job creation and infrastructural development. The study further confirms that liberalization of an economy as in the case of Uganda creates opportunities and that these opportunities are seized by entrepreneurs. Portfolio entrepreneurs play a key role in this process. Technology too has an important role among other factors. As an industry is formed, many new firms enter it. This creates competition. Competition may lead to development of new technologies, products, services and processes. This leads to firm exiting the industry. The start-up and exit of firms in an industry leads to job creation and loss. It is this process that Schumpeter called the creative destruction where job creation and job losses that creates growth. This study brings out the importance of the large scale portfolio entrepreneurs, how they start business, perceive opportunities, and compete. The conclusions from the study are that a relationship exists between entrepreneurial activity and economic growth, and that large scale entrepreneurs have a major role to play in an economy. They are job creators, tax payers, wealth creators, and through the multiplier effect. There is need for deductive studies in an attempt to confirm this relationship.

A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Commerce, Law and management, University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Business Sciences. Johannesburg, November 2017. / The conceptualisation of core values indicate that they are guiding principles in shaping organisational culture. Furthermore, values enhance firm efficiency if they are well integrated in all business processes. Despite the fact that core values motivate employees, SMEs in the informal economies of developing countries do not provide a list of core values to employees. The purpose of this study, therefore; was to establish the commonly practiced core values in Uganda’s informal economy and whether such core values could motivate and reinforce behaviour among employees and at the same time, foster entrepreneurial performance. The study adopted a mixed methods approach. In this case, the sample size for qualitative interviews was twenty-five respondents whereas the sample size for the quantitative survey was three hundred and eighty-six (386) respondents. The interviews were guided by a semi-structured interview guide and revealed that the commonly practiced core values in Uganda’s informal economy are; cleanliness, trust, fairness, responsibility and respect. It was established that core values motivate and reinforce employee behaviour. The quantitative survey was done using a questionnaire with a five- point Likert scale. Hypotheses and mediation tests were carried out by way of structural equation modeling, using AMOS and Sobel’s test respectively. Results from all hypotheses’ tests indicated significant positive relationships between predictor and outcome variables. However, the relationships of; motivation and entrepreneurial performance and legitimacy and entrepreneurial performance were positive, but insignificant. In addition, it was discovered that the reinforcement theory is applicable in Uganda’s informal economy. Based on the results of this research, it is recommended that SMEs should seek to acquire skills on how to fully turn legitimacy and motivation into business advantage and how to use core values as tools for advertising and marketing the business. Finally, the Ministry of Gender, Labour and Social Development, with help from local governments, should design a policy to tempt SMEs to voluntarily engage in community service, especially cleaning up water and drainage channels to improve cleanliness in the communities as well as improving on business legitimacy. / GR2018