Indigenous Enterprise Success: In Our Peoples’ Voices

This paper showcases the diverse worldviews of First Peoples, Māori, and Indigenous Ugandan enterprise success. This scope highlights both historical and contemporary challenges related to colonial legacies and Indigenous knowledge systems. It discusses how First Peoples in Australia and Māori in Aotearoa New Zealand have utilised their unique cultural assets and traditional values to drive economic self-determination in a globalised economy. Similarly, Uganda’s Indigenous entrepreneurship is highlighted through the lens of social enterprise, grounded in the African philosophy of Ubuntu, which emphasises relational accountability and communal prosperity. Secondary qualitative data is provided from three separate scholars’ higher degree research, illuminating Indigenous entrepreneurs’ culturally anchored conceptions of success. Indigenous methodologies, such as yarning and kaupapa Māori, are employed in two of these studies to weave worldviews into a fuller understanding of enterprise success. The other study reclaims Ugandan studied social enterprises as Indigenous enterprises and applies Ubuntu philosophy to situate their success. The literature remains dominated by Global North framings and industrial titans; our work repositions success as a tapestry of community values, intergenerational thinking, spiritual continuity, and cultural resilience. Success, refracted through frameworks such as the 7Ps (First Peoples), kaupapa Māori philosophy, and Ubuntu, encompasses the relational, spiritual, cultural, and economic aspects. Despite the enduring violence of colonial structures and deficit discourses, Indigenous entrepreneurship represents a resurgence: an affirmation of being, belonging, and becoming. Our findings offer a relationally grounded alternative to prevailing economic narratives in this time of global instability, one that is egalitarian in nature and speaks to the connection of both the spiritual and physical worlds. We contribute to the decolonisation of enterprise success by centring Indigenous epistemologies and affirming that the reinvigoration of Indigenous knowledge systems is essential to building sustainable, culturally responsive, and equitable economic futures.