Cultivating greater self‐confidence in African management research

• Author: Joseph Amankwah‐Amoah
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/tie.21921
• Published date: 01 July 2018
• Date: 01 July 2018

EMERGING MARKET PERSPECTIVES: AFRICA

Cultivating greater self-confidence in African management

research

Joseph Amankwah-Amoah

Kent Business School, University of Kent,

Kent, ME4 4TE, United Kingdom

Correspondence

Email: j.amankwah-amoah@kent.ac.uk

Although strategic management has taken root in many African organizations, much of the

existing body of African management research offers little insight into the current state of

knowledge and direction in terms of Africa finding its voice within the mainstream research.

We draw on a review of the literature to develop a conceptual framework for classifying the

contributions in African management research. The conceptual model captures the indigenous

(intra-Africa) and inter-Africa dimension of macro-strategy and organizational behavior/human

resource research. The accumulated body of research indicates a sign of growing self-

confidence in African management research that must be maintained and revitalized. This arti-

cle contributes to the literature by developing a unified conceptual model that captures both

the indigenous and comparative dimensions of management research. A number of fruitful ave-

nues for future research have been advanced.

KEYWORDS

Africa, African management research, emerging economies, sub-Saharan Africa

1|INTRODUCTION

Since the signing of the Berlin Act (1885), which culminated in the

“scramble for Africa,”competition for resources, influence, capabil-

ities, and territory has continued unabated across the continent

(Carmody, 2011; Uzoigwe, 1984). Interestingly enough, accompanying

this has been growing competition for resources, not only between

nations but also between local and foreign companies (Carmody,

2011; Pakenham, 1991). By the turn of the 21st century, there was

another kind of competition for resources and influence between the

traditional forces of the West and emerging forces from the East,

with China and India spearheading the quest for natural resources

and raw materials (Brautigam, 2009). Indeed, China has emerged as a

global industrial powerhouse and an engine for many emerging

economies, including those in Africa (Amankwah-Amoah & Debrah,

2014b; Broadman, 2007; Carmody & Owusu, 2007; Hanusch, 2012;

Ramamurti & Singh, 2009; Yin & Vaschetto, 2011). Trade between

China and African nations grew from $1 billion in 1980 to $3 billion

in 1995 to $9.4 billion in 2000, and then to around $114 billion by

2010 (Bremmer, 2012; Morgan, 2008; Wonacott, 2011). By 2015, the

total trade had surged to$172 billion (Pilling & Klasa, 2017). This evo-

lution of “strategy”isimportant because the changing environment has

also been matched by burgeoning streams of African management

research acrossthe social science disciplines.

In the midst of these recent developments has been a growing

scholarly interest in not only strategic management in Africa but also

general management (see George, Corbishley, Khayesi, Haas, & Tiha-

nyi, 2016; Zoogah & Nkomo, 2013). Although the existing body of

research continues to expand, there remains a lack of a comprehen-

sive framework to account for the various dynamics of the existing

literature and past accomplishments. The scattered nature of the

existing body of African management research has obscured the past

progresses, and future research direction remains uncertain

(Amankwah-Amoah, 2016). The chief purpose of this article is to

draw on a review of the literature to develop a multidimensional

framework of African management research. We develop a concep-

tual model toward enhancing the voice of African management

research within the mainstream management literature.

The article extends prior scholarly works in the following

respects: First, in spite of growing body of research on the business

environment in Africa (e.g., Julian & Ofori-dankwa, 2013; Ofori-

Dankwa & Julian, 2013), there remains a dearth of integrated concep-

tual frameworks to account for the dynamics and pattern of the cur-

rent body of research. In this direction, we chart the evolution of

DOI: 10.1002/tie.21921

Thunderbird Int. Bus. Rev. 2018;60:511–522. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/tie © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. 511