Do ‘Harambee Spirit’ and ‘Familiness’ share their meanings in the context of ICT Sector Family Businesses in Kenya?

This paper examines the two seemingly unrelated concepts of ‘Familiness’ and ‘Harambee Spirit’ in the context of Kenya. The key questions addressed in this paper are ‘to what extent are family firms, in particular, those operating in ICT sector, are embedded in ‘Harambee spirit’ and how does such embeddedness shape the family firms’ business operations? Based on the purposively selected three family ICT firms and relevant literature, the study provides evidence which shows the presence of main features of the ‘Harambee spirit’ and ‘Familiness’, and that some elements of these overlap. Furthermore, the study found variations in the extent to which some ‘Familiness” features were observed in sample firms. In a wider plane, the study furthers our understanding of how both the family and the national cultural contexts shape the behaviour of firms.