ADVANCING MANAGEMENT SCHOLARSHIP AND PRACTICE THROUGH INDUSTRY–ACADEMIA COLLABORATION
We are honoured and delighted to jointly write the introduction to the Africa Journal of Management (AJOM) first special issue. For the publication of this special issue, AJOM has partnered with the East African Community (EAC) German Cooperation program “Support to the EAC Integration Process”, which is implemented by the “Deutsche Geselleschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit” (GIZ) GmbH (hereafter referred to as GIZ/EAC). The main objective of the special issue is to advance management scholarship and practice in Africa and globally by undertaking quality management research on regional integration. Specifically, the joint AJOM-GIZ/EAC project is aimed at providing evidence-based knowledge about strategies business leaders use to deal with the opportunities and challenges of managing within the changing business environment in the context of regional integration in the East African Community (EAC), and globally. The title of this special issue, “Managing in an Integrated East Africa” captures the twin objectives of advancing management scholarship and regional economic management in Africa.
THE EAST AFRICAN COMMUNITY AND THE PRIVATE SECTOR
We focus on the EAC as one of the eight African Union (AU) recognized regional economic communities (RECs), considered to be the most advanced in terms of economic and political integration. The EAC is an intergovernmental organization that comprises of the five Partner States of the Republics of Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Uganda and the United Republic of Tanzania. As stated in the Article 5 (2) of the Treaty of Establishment of the EAC, the Partner States undertook to establish a customs union, a common market, a monetary union and, subsequently, a political federation (www.eac.int).
This special issue focuses on the private sector for several reasons. The EAC Partner States ratified the Common Market Protocol in 2005, allowing for the free movement of goods, services, capital and people and during the past 10 years, progress has been made in the implementation of its various provisions and many companies, local as well as multinational enterprises (MNEs) have started to operate regionally. GIZ has been engaged in the East African region and especially with the private sector for many years. The EAC Secretariat usually concentrates on macro policy levels, requiring information from stakeholders who are supposed to take advantage of these policies. Therefore, it is highly advantageous to include opinions and experiences of the private sector as input in their policymaking processes. The GIZ/EAC program sought to cooperate with AJOM to leverage its contacts and local knowledge working with AJOM's expertise as an African management academic institution that supports academia in the continent and acknowledges the importance of the private sector in Africa's development (http://www.africa-aom.org; www.eacgermany.org).
The main driver for regional economic integration in the EAC is the private sector. It profits most from deeper integration such as the common market because the free movement of goods, services, capital, and people allows the private sector to do business more easily and cheaply across borders, rationalize operations and expand markets. Yet, the obstacles and challenges faced by companies wishing to expand and take advantage of the growing EAC market have not been subjected to in depth management research. This special issue is aimed at improving our understanding of what the integration process means for the practicing managers, and how companies deal with it both operationally and strategically. Initially, our aim was limited to understanding how private sector companies approach regional integration in the EAC. As discussions with AJOM progressed, we began to discover opportunities for broader advancements of management scholarship and practice and to bring together scholars and practicing managers from Africa and globally. The focus is on private sector managers' experiences and realities of managing within the changing business environment in the EAC and globally. The private sector can help reduce poverty and inequality while promoting inclusive growth by creating economic opportunities and employment, especially for youths, women and other marginalized groups. The special issue provides evidence based insights for business managers, investors, entrepreneurs, policymakers, educators, development partners, academics and informed citizens. It should serve as a good example to encourage governments and other development partners to open dialogue not only with the private sector but also other stakeholders such as civil society, trade and professional associations, youths, women, academic institutions and ordinary citizens.
THE AJOM-GIZ/EAC COLLABORATION
This special issue is the result of multi-sector, multilevel collaborations among university based academic researchers, senior business managers operating in East Africa and globally, GIZ/EAC management and staff, professional interviewers and writers, the East African Business Council (EABC), AJOM editorial volunteers, and our publishers. It is an example of how to bring people together from different institutions, experiences and across continents to connect, collaborate, learn together and contribute. The AJOM-GIZ/EAC partnership has connected previously unconnected scholars and practitioners, facilitated their collaborations, and synthesized their contributions to the advancement of management scholarship and practice in regionally integrating business environments.
AJOM was launched as a top-tier management journal at the 2014 Africa Academy of Management (AFAM) Conference in Gaborone, Botswana. While recognizing the significant progress Africa has made, especially since the beginning of the 21st century, it is widely recognized that serious challenges remain. In order to sustain and speed up momentum, avoid reversal, and deal effectively with emerging challenges and opportunities such as regional, continental and global integration, Africa needs more and better management scholarship, education and practice. It is with this background that AJOM was launched with the aim of advancing management scholarship and practice in and about Africa and globally. We strive to give our readers, AFAM members and like-minded members of the wider community a platform to create knowledge, discuss and share ideas and experiences relating to management scholarship and practice. AJOM seeks to give voice to all those who are committed to advancing management scholarship and practice for the benefit of all Africans.
We are interested in work that addresses Africa's most important development needs, challenges and opportunities as well as the big management questions of the day. We welcome studies that help us better understand Africa's productive enterprises including locally owned businesses, start-ups, the informal sector, as well as foreign-owned enterprises. We want to give voice to people such as senior managers with different viewpoints, backgrounds, personal stories and life experiences who wish to express themselves thoughtfully, addressing important management issues, raising interesting research questions, questioning established wisdom and practices, and proposing insightful alternatives. We seek to connect people across institutions and continents, facilitate lasting collaborations and contributions resulting in interesting research networks, advanced research tools and methods, innovative interventions and world class best practices. We want to create a platform for continuous dialogue, knowledge creation, problem solving, and lifelong learning. AJOM understands that advancing management scholarship and connecting Africa to the global knowledge value chain depends on our continuing ability to forge innovative and mutually beneficial collaborative partnerships across sectors, institutions, disciplines, life experiences and continents.
As pointed out in the introduction to the inaugural issue, AJOM'S vision and strategies have slowly clarified over the past two years as a result of wide consultations with different stakeholders in Africa and abroad. It has become clear that high quality research must be intended to benefit business and government, thereby leading to improvements in Africa's economic management and organization performance. As well, high quality research capacities must be built or strengthened in African universities so as to advance management scholarship and education in Africa's growing number of business schools. It is important to build a big inclusive tent and bridges across disciplines and other divides. AJOM is designed to serve academic researchers and management practitioners in Africa and globally. This special issue was designed with these objectives in mind.
This special issue shows that focus on the African context and management content are not mutually exclusive. We have addressed an important big contextual development issue—regional integration—while also dealing with core management theory, research and methods for two of the three research articles in this special issue. We have provided an approach for connecting those interested or concerned with Africa's contextual attributes or uniqueness, mainly based in Africa, and those interested in advancing management thought and practice, mostly based outside Africa. By dealing with contextual development issues together with core management content, we hope to mainstream management scholarship and redress its current state of marginalization in Africa.
Our contributions speak to the needs of various interest groups beyond academics. Development partners, EAC Secretariat, and ministries in charge of regional integration and other development organizations in the public and private sectors benefit from better understanding of the processes of regional integration, policies and modalities needed for better implementation, as well as existing knowledge gaps that must be addressed. For the practicing managers both in the EAC and globally, we provide better understanding of the state of knowledge and practice relating to the challenges and opportunities of managing in regionally integrating environments. With the growing importance of regional trade agreements in Africa and worldwide, companies are increasingly challenged to manage not only for internationalization but regionalization as well with wide ranging strategic and operational implications. Managers who have contributed stories for this special issue have benefited by having the opportunity to articulate their understanding, responses and strategies for regional integration. These managers serve as teachers, mentors and role models for other managers, potential investors, young upcoming African entrepreneurs and aspiring start-ups such as Chura http://www.chura.co.ke) or Gro Intelligence (http://www.gro-intelligence.com).
Other managers in the EAC, such as members of the EABC, benefit by learning from the stories, strategies and lessons of experience shared by the 13 managers. Prospective investors, entrepreneurs, management consultants, advisors and ordinary citizens benefit from better understanding of issues associated with firm-level management of regional integration in general, and the EAC business investment climate in particular. Through continent-wide visions and strategies about the future of Africa such as Agenda 2063 (www.agenda2063.au.int), African leaders have identified integration (regional, continental and global) as a key driver for development. Therefore, in a small but significant way, this special issue also speaks to those in the private and public sectors driving integration in Africa as a whole. Management scholars and students benefit due to the contributions to theory, research methods, practice and possibly education. The GIZ/EAC program and AJOM benefit by drawing out lessons of experience in industry-academia collaborations. African business schools benefit from the management knowledge and information on regional integration which can be used for education and learning. This should encourage university business schools to develop advanced management studies programs and establish research centres of excellence on regional integration.
STRUCTURE, ORGANIZATION AND CONTENT
The special issue is organized in two parts. The first part is made up of three research articles; the second is made up of 13 managers' personal stories about managing regional integration and doing business in the EAC market. The first research paper undertakes a comprehensive review of regional integration management literature. It provides a foundation, reference point and insights for scholars, managers and policymakers interested in understanding micro and firm level strategies and outcomes as well as macro level factors associated with regional integration in Africa and elsewhere. Only a limited number of studies reviewed in the article focus on, or even mention regional integration, and fewer still include Africa. In this article, the authors found that a globally important, theoretically interesting and widely applied aspect of management practice—regional integration—is an under researched area of management theory and practice. With the recent conclusion of the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) and growing emphasis on continental and regional integration in Africa, we call on scholars in Africa and elsewhere to give more attention to regional integration management research and practice.
The second research paper provides a general synopsis of the EAC and traces the history, progress, challenges and opportunities of deeper regional integration in the area. The authors note that regional integration in Eastern Africa dates back more than 100 years ago and trace its evolution from colonial times to the present. This article provides qualitative and quantitative information about the performance of the EAC. It describes the EAC's governance and institutional arrangements and outlines key integration achievements to date, notably the establishment of the common market, the promise to establish the monetary union with a common currency by 2017, and the ultimate goal of achieving a political federation. Noting that as elsewhere in the world, regional integration is hard and often protracted among sovereign states, the article discusses EAC's challenges, opportunities and drivers for deeper integration. It also provides a brief discussion of the region's natural resources, land, demography and infrastructure. This sets the stage for undertaking a qualitative and quantitative assessment of the EAC economies along the measures of governance, development capacity, economy, investment climate and foreign direct investment inflows. Overall, the data paint a nuanced picture of impressive progress in the midst of daunting challenges. Looking forward, the article concludes that the prospects for deeper integration are promising providing the EAC continues to build on its successes, confronts current and future challenges and takes a holistic long term approach to the effective management of deeper regional integration. It ends by calling upon the international community to play more strategic role working with EAC and Partner States for the effective and sustaining implementation of regional and continental integration.
Drawing from institutional theory, the third paper uses the stories from senior managers and undertakes a quantitative content analysis to identify factors managers consider most salient for driving or impeding regional integration in EAC. The authors look at three institutional pillars—regulative, normative, cognitive—and find that managers consider regulative factors to be the most salient for facilitating and impeding business expansion in the EAC. They reported more regulatory obstacles than facilitators by a factor of almost 3 to 1. The regulative institutional pillars refer to the quality of public administration such as the laws, regulations and administrative procedures that govern business transactions. By emphasizing the significance of the negative effects of the regulatory environment, the private sector managers are underscoring the critical role governments play in creating an enabling or, in this case disabling environment for doing business in regionally integrating environments. The policies governments and regional organizations put in place and how these policies are implemented in the service of the people and business determine the success or otherwise of working and doing business in regionally integrated markets. These results seem to support the conceptualization and practical interventions of the World Bank's “Doing Business” (www.doingbusiness.org), which emphasises improvements in the regulatory quality of East African economies. For organizations like the EABC and its members, the results of this article seem to suggest that lobbying efforts for deeper integration should be directed at improving the EAC regulatory environment. Likewise, for policymakers interested in using regional integration to promote private sector development, the results point to specific areas of public administration where improvements are imperative.
For scholars interested in advancing management theory and research, this paper provides interesting findings and research questions. It is an empirical test of institutional theory, using perceptual data, thus providing opportunities for replications and theory development or extensions. It provides a basis for comparative studies of the salience of the three institutional pillars—regulative, normative and cognitive—in different settings. Methodologically, it illustrates the link between qualitative data collection using interviews and quantitative analysis and synthesis providing theoretically generalizable empirical evidence and sense making. We particularly recommend the paper for researchers who use only qualitative interview data and point to readily available research methods and tools for going the extra distance to undertake quantitative content analysis and syntheses for greater understanding. The paper shows how managers can contribute to theory development and testing just by doing what they know best: talking about their work and businesses, that is “doing their thing”.
Stories are widely used in management and organizational studies for a variety of purposes, including theory development and testing, research data collection, organizational change and development management, and creative problem-solving and sense-making. Here we use the stories in two ways: to let the managers share their views about managing in an increasingly integrating EAC business environment, and as input for undertaking a quantitative content analysis so as to gain a more conceptual understanding of the collective stories of all the managers.
There are 13 stories in this special issue (five from Kenya, one from Rwanda, three from Tanzania, and four from Uganda). Unfortunately, we did not manage to get any contributions from Burundi at this time. The 13 managers included multinational corporations (e.g. DHL, Coca-Cola), local businesses (e.g. Mukwano), young entrepreneurs (e.g. Banana Investments), long term experienced players in the EAC market (e.g. Kampala Pharmaceutical Investment), and a state-owned enterprise (RwandAir). They all share, with the readers and fellow managers facing integration in EAC and elsewhere, their first-hand experiences—as top managers, CEOs, founders, owners, etc—of running a business across borders in a fast-moving, regionally-integrating market. All the 13 managers' stories are printed in their entirety for future research, education and management development.
AUTHORS AND INTEGRATING MANAGERS
A close look at the authors of the research articles reveals the extent to which this special issue has facilitated connections, collaborations and contributions to advancing management scholarship. There are 23 authors including managers from 13 companies and 10 university business schools from Africa and abroad. “A Profile of the East African Community” co-authored by two Kenya nationals working for a Kenya-based international university business school, a Tanzanian professor currently working in the US, and a native of Uganda in the diaspora. What they share with the readers is not only substantive content, but their respective sentiments about regional integration in their homelands. The paper “Institutional Factors Affecting Expansion within the East African Community” brings together highly trained young upcoming management scholars, based in the US, and gets them to focus on advancing management scholarship in Africa with the expectation that they will continue to work on management issues important for Africa as part of their academic and scholarly careers. The paper also provides opportunities for capacity development by connecting the US-based researchers with Rebecca Namatovu, lecturer and doctoral candidate based at the Makerere University Business School in Uganda. This provides opportunities for networking as well as practical hands on research experience, drawing from contemporary theory and advanced research methods and tools. The expectation is that she can then become a “trainer of trainers”, teaching and sharing her knowledge with colleagues in Africa. The idea is to go beyond seminars and doctoral consortia and create a platform for more sustaining academic and professional collaborations, leading to scholarly publications. We have connected African scholars with their American colleagues—Africans in the diaspora—thus facilitating collaboration, networking, capacity-building and shared contribution to research methods and knowledge. We seek to foster lifelong learning. However, we need to do a better job regarding gender balance.
Similar observations can be made about the composition of the authors of the managers' stories. At least three of the managers work with, or have worked with, global MNEs with managerial experiences in other parts of the world. Their contributions go beyond what they have seen in EAC and draw on corporate global experiences. They provide useful insights to the wider EAC business community such as members of the East African Business Council, nationally based enterprise managers and those yet to emerge as managers and entrepreneurs in East Africa. Different managers emphasize different aspects of integration. For example, more experienced managers tend to focus on corporate strategies while others are more reactive, calling for government lobbying, dealing with governance (corruption) problems, or delaying regional expansions.
We are determined to connect Africa and the world using management scholarship as the platform for collaborations and contributions. We have opened new doors and provided frameworks for future research and practice. In the process, we've learnt useful lessons of how to connect people and institutions for effective collaborations and contributions. This special issue must be seen as just the beginning. Future research needs to be more inclusive (e.g. female managers, stories from lower level participants), focus on other sectors (e.g. senior government officials, development partners, informal sector, and civil society), other regional economic communities (e.g. the Southern African Development Community [SADC]), collaborations with other likeminded partners, academics and institutions and address other development topics important for managing Africa's future.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS AND THANKS
This special issue would not be possible without GIZ's material, intellectual and institutional knowledge and support. Working with a well-established development partner with excellent connections and local knowledge allowed AJOM to concentrate on content and editorial work. From the GIZ/EAC program, support to the EAC integration process, we thank the following for your leadership, guidance and keen interest in the conceptualization and implementation of the various stages of this special issue. To Tobias Bünder, Katharina Hess, Veronika Bomba, Jenny Nickisch and Thomas Walter, we say lch danke lhnen! We would like to offer our special thanks to all the managers that participated in the special issue for their time and expertise, cooperation, personal experiences and valuable insights about managing in an integrated East Africa. As well we want to express our gratitude to the following journalists and professional interviewers who worked with the managers to help them to organize and articulate their thoughts on paper: Richard Crompton, Rowan Emslie, Jonathan Rosen, and Edward Ssekalo. AJOM wishes to thank EABC for their help to coordinate and identify eligible managers for this project, the African Academy of Management for inviting us to launch our special issue during their conference in January 2016 in Nairobi and, finally all the authors and reviewers who have shaped the content of this special issue. To you all we say asante sana.Footnote*
Notes
*Asante sana means “thank you very much” in Kiswahili, the official EAC language.