Management Studies from Africa: A Cross-cultural Critique

Abstract

This article presents a critical cross-cultural appraisal of management scholarship concerning Africa, considering differences between scholarship on Africa, scholarship for Africa, and scholarship from Africa. It looks at how Africa has been conceptualized and portrayed in the management literature from an outsider's pejorative perspective, how solutions for Africa, underlined by modernization theory, have been sought for Africa by management scholars, and the imperative for research that reflects indigenous approaches and the difficulties with this. It then goes on to look at two major aspects that affect the way we research, and should be researching Africa: the changing geopolitical context, specifically China in Africa, that provides a different perspective of scholarship for Africa; and, the political nature of concepts of indigenous African management and how this should be integrated into management scholarship.