Research

My research is concerned with developing cross-cultural management theory, in relation to studying management and organization in sub-Saharan Africa.

Africa has been largely ignored by extant cross-cultural management scholarship. Not only is Africa becoming more important on the world stage, its lack of integration into cross-cultural management studies is missing an opportunity to further develop this sub-discipline. Geopolitical and local powers dynamics are very prominent in African countries. You do not even have to look below the surface. Highly complex societies, conflictual histories, all add up to an opportunity to examine and integrate these dynamics into theory building. Mostly cross-cultural management scholarship ignores power dynamics and different and multiple levels of cross-cultural interaction. Cross-cultural management scholars predominantly miss the political nature of doing social and behavioural science. Yet in Africa, you have to recognize these aspects.

Most of what I do today is informed by my initial 15-country study of sub-Saharan Africa published in 2004 in my book Management and Change in Africa: A Cross-cultural Perspective (London: Sage)

Currently I am working on three projects:

Cross-cultural management of development projects and management of NGOs in Africa

China in Africa and the implications at organizational and community levels

Indigenous management and the informal economy in Africa