Sourcing from Africa: A Systematic Review and a Research Agenda

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/ijmr.12158
• Author: Asta Salmi,Katri Kauppi,Weimu You
• Date: 01 April 2018
• Published date: 01 April 2018

International Journal of Management Reviews, Vol. 20, 627–650 (2018)

DOI: 10.1111/ijmr.12158

Sourcing from Africa: A Systematic

Review and a Research Agenda

Katri Kauppi, Asta Salmi1and Weimu You

Aalto University School of Business, Runeberginkatu 22–24, Helsinki, Finland, PO Box 21220, 00076 Aalto, Finland,

and 1Lappeenranta University of Technology, School of Business and Management, Skinnarilankatu 34, 53850

Lappeenranta, Finland

Corresponding author email: katri.kauppi@aalto.fi

The African continent is rapidly growing its global economic impact and becoming

a more attractive sourcing context. However, very little is known about current pur-

chasing practices, successes and challenges on this continent. The authors investigate

the specific features that characterize supply management in Africa by conducting a

systematic review of the literatureon sourcing in and from Africa. Their aim is to help

scholars direct their future research efforts. The authors take a thematic approach in

their analysis of 57 articles, and identify key findings, research challenges and oppor-

tunities. They focus on four areas previously identified as distinguishing the sourcing

context in Africa: African culture and ethics; the role of African countries and suppli-

ers in global value chains; an increasing emphasis on sustainability; and the gradual

development of professionalprocurement practices. It is found that research in the area

of supply management in the African context is still scattered, with an evidentneed for

more theoretically rich and methodologically rigorous inquiry. The authors propose a

structured, theoretically grounded research agenda for each of the themes identified,

and make general observations on potential future directions.

Introduction

The African continent has recently become more inte-

grated into the global economy and is predicted to in-

crease its future economic role: the outlook for further

growth remains promising, and by2040 Africa should

have the world’s largest working-age population

(Roxburgh et al. 2010). It thus offers new and grow-

ing markets for foreign enterprises, and is a promising

sourcing context for firms across industries (Gu 2009;

Oke et al. 2009). In fact, some companies are leaving

the previously cost-effective China and searching for

suppliers in other emerging markets such as Africa

(Kumar et al. 2009), which are attractive in particular

because of their natural resources (Javalgiet al. 2009).

There has been a dramatic increase in the number

of academic studies focusing on global sourcing and

comparing purchasing across continents (Karjalainen

and Salmi 2013; Kaufmann et al. 2012; Manuj

and Mentzer 2008; Quintens et al. 2005), although

research tends to report on sourcing from Europe,

North America and some Asian countries. Only

recently have emerging markets started to attract

interest (Lintukangas et al. 2010; Pazirandeh and

Norrman 2014), and the African continent, in par-

ticular, is still in the nascent stage in terms of supply

research. We identified important gaps in knowledge

building in this area (Nnamdi and Owusu 2014):

studies investigate agricultural products, for instance

(Otchere et al. 2013; Ouma 2012), tending to ignore

other sectors, and (African) scholars focus on public

procurement and pay less attention to the private

sector (Akenroye et al. 2012). There is an urgentneed

for a better understanding of supply management in

Africa in the interest of both scholars and managers.

In responding to this, we contrast the African

context with those in other developing economies to

shed light on its current and potential peculiarities.

We concluded from our preliminary reading of the

literature on supply management in Africa that the

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628 K. Kauppi et al.

research was fragmentary, and that a systematic

analysis was needed to provide researchers with

feasible foci (Wilding and Wagner 2014).

Given our aim to identify the specific features of

current purchasing and supply-management practices

in Africa, we conducted a systematic reviewof the rel-

evant literature on sourcing in and from the African

continent. The main contributions include our iden-

tification of the research gaps in this context and our

suggested directions for research. Our approach is

multidisciplinary, and we aim to make a theoreti-

cal contribution to the fields of purchasing, supply-

chain management and international business. Our

research approach includes a systematic literature re-

view (studies up to the end of 2015), followed by a

thematic analysis, and identifying potential areas for

further research.

First, we discuss the African context and how it

compares with other countries, thus providing the

rationale for our focused research effort. We intro-

duce the contextual lenses through which we ana-

lyze the literature in the systematic review. Specifi-

cally, we identify four themes that are highlighted in

the African context and make it different from the

contexts in other developing areas such as Asia. We

structure our analysis according to these: (1) African

culture and ethics; (2) the role of African countries

and suppliers in global value chains; (3) sustainabil-

ity; and (4) the developing procurement profession

and its purchasing practices. Second, we explain in

detail the process of our systematic literature review

and our analytical approach. Third,we give a brief de-

scriptive summary of the selected studies (57 articles

in total), followed by a critical review and analysis

of the state of research in the field. We then formu-

late a research agenda for each theme, and offer sug-

gestions on how to incorporate a more theoretically

grounded approach into future studies. In conclusion,

we discuss future research and summarize our main

contributions.

African continent as a sourcing

context – different from other

developing economies

Various scholars have called for more studies on

the African context (Acquaah 2012; Gruber and

Schlegelmilch 2015). As a continent, Africa is an

under-researched area, specifically in the fields of in-

ternational business (Lopez-Duarte et al. 2016) and

corporate social responsibility (CSR): it is ‘much less

well researched than other regions’ (Kolkand Lenfant

2010, p. 241) and ‘a broadening of the empirical base,

particularly to Africa, seems necessary’ (Kolk et al.

2014, p. 360). Studies on supply in Africa are war-

ranted not only to enhance understanding of context-

specific phenomena (such as the provision of fresh

fruit), but also to strengthen (supply-chain) capabil-

ities in the region (Narayana et al. 2014). To give a

solid grounding for our analysis, we discuss the spe-

cific key features of business and society that emerged

from our initial reading of the literature on sourcing

from, and doing business in, the continent. Each of

the themes resurfaced in several articles and books

discussing the African context. These aspects distin-

guished it from other emerging contexts as portrayed

in the literature on international business and pur-

chasing, and consequently informed our subsequent

literature review.

First, the African continent is unique in terms of

culture and ethics. The well-known GLOBE project

used data collected on cultural values and beliefs

from 61 nations, and identified sub-Saharan Africa

as a separate cultural cluster (Gupta et al. 2002). A

key feature of the sub-Saharan cultures is their non-

individualistic character (Lutz 2009). A related aspect

is the concept of ubuntu. This is an indigenous man-

agement concept in sub-Saharan Africa, which is sim-

ilar to, but not the same as, that of guanxi in Asia and

blat in Russia, but has attracted much less attention

in management literature (Holtbr¨

ugge 2013; West

2014). Ubuntu emphasizes community and emotions

in decision-making: firms must be recognized as com-

munities (Holtbr¨

ugge 2013; Lutz 2009). In such a

culture, the individual ‘pursues his or her own good

through pursuing the common good’ (Lutz 2009,

p. 314). It is claimed that, in favoring solutions that

satisfy all stakeholders and with its long-term per-

spective, ubuntu may be a source of competitive ad-

vantage (Holtbr¨

ugge 2013). Given that guanxi has

been extensively studied in buyer–supplier relation-

ships with Asian suppliers, and blat in the con-

text of emerging markets in Russia (Mattsson and

Salmi 2013; Worm and Michailova 2003), ubuntu

should be an equally interesting concept in African

buyer–supplier relationships. Naturally, cultural dif-

ferences between the various countries (Woldu 2001)

characterize and complicate supply chains within

the African continent, and constitute an interesting

research subject.

An additional but controversial ethical issue that

potentially affects sourcing in Africa is corruption.

Given that, according to Transparency International

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