Dr Michael Ngoasong

Professional biography

Michael’s research advances entrepreneurial practice in disadvantaged communities/groups. His work has advanced the understanding that while highly embedded entrepreneurs and managers can easily access resources and win legitimacy resulting in improved practice, they can also become locked into established systems that constrain their decision-making. Empirical case studies uncover how addressing the lock-in effects enables the development of enterprises and thereby positively impact local communities/groups. 

His most recent publications include women as vectors of social entrepreneurship, informal microfinance institutions and development-led tourism entrepreneurship, digital entrepreneurship and impact investing in Africa. Michael also has a long-standing interest in the study of how global partnerships and initiatives shape local practices in Sub-Saharan African, including globally-backed policies and initiatives in healthcare, tourism development, and petroleum local content development. His work has been published in leading journals such as Journal of Small Business Management, Management and Organization Review, Tourism Management, Annals of Tourism Research, Social Science & Medicine, Health Policy & Planning, Energy Policy, Strategic Change and Journal of Small Business and Enterprise Development

FUNDED PROJECTS

Accelerating Entrepreneurship Support in Universities in Kenya - £170,000.

Project Team: Dr Michael Ngoasong (Principal Investigator), Professor Abel Kinoti Meru (Technical Lead for Kenya, Riara University), Vincent Odhiambo (Ashoka East Africa, Ecosystem Partner), Dr Nicholas Ozor (Africa Technology Policy Studies Network, Kenya), Dr Isidora Kourti (Co-Investigator), Dr Aqueel Wahga (Co-Investigator). Brief Description: Use of action research to design and pilot a virtual accelerator as a digital hub for curriculum adaptation that reinforces entrepreneurship education in universities in Kenya. The partnership co-designed and pilot-run a virtual start-up accelerator, a hub for accelerating student start-up businesses and a blended learning programme feeding teaching materials into the university’s undergraduate entrepreneurship programme. The accelerator will impact this cohort of student start-ups who will be able to either gain direct employment or empowered to access and act on available resources to successfully establish, manage and grow social and commercial enterprises in their home environment. Funder:  British Council, through the inaugural Innovation for African Universities Programme. Duration: October 2021 – January 2024.

This partnership is being funded through three competitive phases: (1) partnership funding (£15,000), (2a) partnership implementation (£85,000), (2b) Community building grant (£20,000) and (3) Consolidation grant (£50,000)

Consult the AESU partnership page to learn more.

UN Women Second Chance Education and Vocational Learning (SCE) Programme - £400,000

The Open University received funding from UN Women, the United Nations entity for gender equality and the empowerment of women, to be its content development partner. This is as part of the Second Chance Education and Vocational Learning (SCE) Programme which aims to develop context-specific, affordable and scalable learning and employment pathways for empowering the world’s most disadvantaged women and young women. This was to apply a participatory approach to course development by producing, and supporting the production of, high-quality courses adapted to women from beneficiary communities. Considering Covid-19 travel restrictions the entire project has been led by the OU remotely between September 2020 and December 2021. A collection page on OpenLearn Create collates the courses under Second Chance Education programme.

The OU’s project team consisted of Academic Lead Dr Michael Ngoasong, OU Business School colleagues Professor Liz Daniel and Professor Jo Brewis, the International Development Office (IDO) and Learner and Discovery Services (LDS), is collaborating with the Cobra Collective. This project combines subject matter expertise in extensive Business School course production and the University’s international development work. It is also leveraging expertise of the OU-led Gender, Entrepreneurship and Social Policy Institute (GESPi) which drives innovative, interdisciplinary research in gender, entrepreneurship and social policy.

INCUBATE: Engineering Capacity Building in Cameroon through the Creation of a Business Incubator for Engineering Prototyping and Commercialisation - £140,000

Team: Nicholas Church (PI – Institut Saint Jean, Cameroon), Dr Michael Ngoasong (Co-I – Open University), Dr Nishanth Sasthry (Co-I – Kings College London), Lisa Mynheer (C-I – Luminno Ltd). Project Summary: The project will design and implement Fab lab through a hub and spoke university-industry model. The aim is to increase entrepreneurial capacity and competencies in Cameroon, through co-producing and supporting the delivery of high quality, locally relevant engineering entrepreneurship education to engineering students. It would also impact cohorts of engineering graduates who will be able to either gain direct employment or empowered to access and act on available resources to successfully establish, manage and grow social and commercial technology enterprises in their home environment. Funder: Royal Academy of Engineering - Higher Education Partnership in sub-Saharan Africa  Duration: November 2018 - April 2021. At the start of implementation the partners rebranded the project and created a dedicated webpage: Supporting University Curriculum & Creativity in Entrepreneurship Development (SUCCEED).

Women as Vectors of Social Entrepreneurship in Hospitality & Tourism - £10,000

Team: Dr Albert Kimbu (PI - University of Surrey) & Dr Michael Ngoasong (CI - Open University). Aims: The project explores the nature, motivations and extent to which female entrepreneurs in hospitality and tourism related sectors use their businesses as platforms for engagement in various forms of social entrepreneurship leading to value (co)creation, economic and community development in emerging tourism destinations of sub-Saharan Africa such as Cameroon. The finding reveals the circumstances under which women owner-managers of small hospitality and tourism first can be considered and supported to be social entrepreneurs. Another output that draws from this research, published in the Journal of Small Business Management, uncovers how the growth aspirations of women entrepreneurs are evident in the growth development path of their businesses and how policy can redress the slow growth process of women-owned businesses. Funding: British Academy/Leverhulme SRG. Duration: May 2014 - October 2015  

PhD SUPERVISION:

Ongoing supervision

1. Gizem Kutlu, on the influence of gender on environmental entrepreneurship in Turkey

2. Suzzie Aidoo, on interlinkages between gender, entrepreneurial orientation and performance of SMEs in Ghana

​Completed PhDs

1. Andres Morales Pachon, on community development enterprises: Buen vivir and social solidarity economy in Colombia
2. Richmond Lamptey, on impact investing and SME development in Ghana
3. Adewale Adeyemi, on entrepreneurship development initiatives in Nigeria

Michael is the subject matter expert (Track Chair) in Entrepreneurship and International Marketing for the Academy of International Business Sub-Saharan Africa Chapter (2019-2021). He has co-organized a half day academic workshop at School of Hospitality and Tourism, University of Surrey (24 September 2015) and a practitioner workshop at American Language Centre in Douala, Cameroon (7 September 2015). As part of a developing research agenda (with Rob Paton, Alex Korda and Albert Kimbu) on impact investing in African countries Michael co-organised a Roundtable Discussion at Strathmore Business School in Nairobi, Kenya (July 2014) on the policy implications of impact investing in Kenya. This research has also been presented at the International Development Seminar Series, IKD-OU. (15 October 2014) and featured as Guest Editorial, International Development @ The Open University monthly newsletter (February 2015). Michael has been an academic adviser on the Open University Entrepreneurship Competition and sits on the judging panel.

Gender, Entrepreneurship and Social Policy Institute (GESPi)
I co-founded GESPi in October 2019 as a collaboration between Open University Business School and the School of Hospitality and Tourism (University of Surrey) to drive innovative, interdisciplinary research in gender, entrepreneurship and social policy across Africa. Go to the GESPi website for more information.

New Series on Women's Entrepreneurial Journeys in Africa

I am guest editing a new series of articles on the human stories of women's entrepreneurship in Africa. The series is a collaboration between The Open University and the social and political website openDemocracy and showcases new African women’s voices and challenges societal expectations of women’s entrepreneurial journeys on the continent.

openDemocracy has a global readership and the series, which features interviews with women in a wide variety of entrepreneurial roles, is hosted on a dedicated, curated page on its website.

The series will draw on the work of the recently-established Gender, Entrepreneurship and Social Policy Institute (GESPi), a collaboration between the OU, the University of Surrey and others in the UK, Europe and Africa.

University of Management and Technology (UNIMTECH) Sierra Leone

Between 2012 and 2014, I was invited to serve as external adviser to the then Institute of Advanced Management and Technology (IAMTECH). Together with Professor Paul Kamara (CEO) and Dr Mrs Abie Kamara (Principal), we established a framework for producing Higher National Diplomas in Mining and Petroleum Engineering, curriculum reinforcements in Business and Management and the transition from being affiliated to the local Njala University to becoming a fully autonomous university. Returning in November 2019, I saw an institution that had just received full university status, with six campuses across the country (Freetown, Bo, Makeni, Kono, Kambia and Lunsar) and a rented venue in YWCA delivering courses to students who cannot afford the cost of living and studying in Freetown. We have now started the next phase on this journey. We need help with strengthening university governance, capacity building for academic and support staff, and welcoming professors from abroad for seminars. Having secured full university status and developing the curriculum and minimum staff capacity, we now need to help this university to spread its wings and make its own way as a wonderful new university that will empower both the people and the economy.

​University of Johannesburg, South Africa

I am a Senior Research Associate in the School of Tourism and Hospitality (STH)