What Kind of Businesses Does Canada Need Now? What Black Entrepreneurs Can Teach Us About Growth and Resilience

A business can be viable, ambitious and full of potential, and still struggle to grow.

Black entrepreneurs are highly educated, motivated by independence, opportunity and long-term financial goals, and building businesses across many sectors and regions. Yet somewhere between starting a business and building one that can hire, invest and expand, many hit a wall.

Those transition points are the focus of a new wave of research from the Black Entrepreneurship Knowledge Hub (BEKH). Through its regional hubs across Canada, the BEKH is examining what helps Black-owned businesses move from one stage of growth to another.

The question is timely as across Canada, policymakers, business leaders and the public are paying closer attention to the ability of smaller firms to grow and remain resilient during times of economic uncertainty.

For the BEKH, that broader context creates an opportunity to look more closely at the conditions shaping Black business growth while gaining insight into what small businesses need to become stronger and more resilient.

BEKH Researchers at the Atlantic regional hub at Saint Mary’s University in Nova Scotia have given one of those challenges a name: the “growth cliff.” Their upcoming study will follow Black-owned businesses across Canada to understand why some move from nano and micro-operations into early growth while others remain small. The researchers will examine the decisions and conditions surrounding milestones such as hiring, increasing revenue, formalizing operations and expanding capacity.

The idea is not that every business should become large. But for entrepreneurs who want to grow, the path forward can depend on a series of conditions lining up at the right time.

For Dr. Gerald Grant, Academic Director of the BEKH, understanding what is keeping businesses at those transition points is central to the research.

“There are too many businesses currently in a state of limbo. Business owners are interested in growing their enterprises but may face obstacles that prevent them from moving forward. The BEKH research will surface these obstacles and provide insights into how they may be addressed,” Dr. Grant says.

Those are the kinds of growth factors being examined across Canada in the BEKH’s network of researchers.

At Simon Fraser University in British Columbia, the BEKH Western Regional Hub will examine investment readiness and mentorship before turning to procurement as another pathway to growth. The first project will look at what helps Black entrepreneurs become better prepared to pursue financing, while the second will examine whether stronger readiness can translate into access to public-sector contracts.

Financing can help a business prepare to grow, but growth also depends on having customers and access to larger opportunities.

That makes procurement an increasingly important part of the conversation. The Government and large institutions purchase billions of dollars in goods and services each year, creating opportunities for smaller firms to build revenue, establish track records and move into new markets. Recent federal investments through regional development agencies have also placed greater emphasis on helping Black entrepreneurs become procurement-ready and better positioned to enter supply chains.

A related BEKH project with Kasi Insight will look more closely at those pathways. Researchers will identify opportunities for Black-owned businesses in sectors such as infrastructure, advanced manufacturing, critical minerals, clean energy, defence and digital technologies, while examining what businesses need to compete for them.

Access to opportunity is only part of the equation. Businesses also need the tools and capacity to make the most of it.

Artificial intelligence is changing how businesses manage information, reach customers and organize their operations. For smaller firms, it may offer ways to improve productivity and make better use of existing resources. But adoption can also depend on access to knowledge, resources and support.

Researchers at UQAM and Concordia University will examine how Black entrepreneurs in Quebec are using AI, where they see opportunities and what challenges are shaping adoption. A complementary national project at Carleton University in Ottawa will look at high-fit uses of AI for Black-owned small businesses and develop a framework to support adoption.

Technology, however, is only one part of business capacity.

At the University of Alberta, BEKH researchers in central Canada will examine digital financial literacy among Black entrepreneurs, including how they navigate Canada’s credit-based financial system, use digital financial tools and adapt financial practices shaped by different cultural and economic contexts. The project will also look at how gender and family dynamics affect financial decision-making and what more responsive training might look like.

Across the projects, the questions begin to overlap. Financing affects whether a business can invest. Procurement can open doors to contracts large enough to support expansion. Technology can influence productivity. Financial knowledge can shape how entrepreneurs evaluate risk, manage growth and respond to new opportunities.

Through its network of researchers, the BEKH can examine those pieces separately while also beginning to understand how they work together.

Those same questions are also appearing in the programs being built around entrepreneurs. Recent investments through Canada’s regional development agencies have included support for procurement readiness, technology adoption, investor readiness, financial training and market access. The overlap suggests that many of the issues researchers are examining are already shaping how business support is being designed across the country.

There is unlikely to be one intervention that determines whether a business grows. More often, progress depends on how several conditions come together over time.

A financing opportunity may matter more when an entrepreneur is prepared to use it. A procurement program may be more valuable when a business already has the systems and capacity to deliver. Technology can improve productivity, but only when entrepreneurs have the knowledge and resources to integrate it effectively.

That is what makes the regional research particularly useful. Rather than treating growth as a single outcome, the projects are looking more closely at the decisions, resources and relationships that shape the journey toward it.

For Black entrepreneurs, those questions build on an increasingly detailed body of research about both the strengths they bring to entrepreneurship and the barriers that can limit how far their businesses go. The next step is understanding more precisely what helps businesses move forward, and whether those lessons can be translated into better supports, stronger firms and more opportunities for growth.

The implications come at a moment when Canada is asking similar questions of its wider business sector. How can smaller firms become more productive? What helps them invest, adopt technology and compete for larger opportunities? What allows them to remain resilient when economic conditions change?

The BEKH’s regional hubs are approaching those questions through Black entrepreneurship. What they learn may help Canada better understand what it takes to build stronger, more resilient businesses, capable of meeting this moment.