Challenges in the Era of Globalization - iaabd

Challenges in the Era of Globalization
Edited by Emmanuel Obuah
The last two decades have seen increased interest in management challenges on the African continent.
Some scholars have questioned the effectiveness of Western management and human resource practices
in Africa (Blunt & Jones, 1992; Kamoche et al, 2004). Africa remains relatively under-researched. One
review (Punnett et al, 2009) of 17 papers dealing with Africa included three that dealt generally with
Africa, one with southern Africa and one with western Africa. Botswana, Kenya and Malawi were each
included in one study, three focused on Ghana and six on South Africa. The review found that a major
challenge for leadership scholars is to develop a cross-cultural understanding of leadership, especially in
the African context.
There is little research on motivation and leadership in Africa or the African Diaspora; more work is
required in almost every field to better understand the concepts of leadership and motivation from these
perspectives. Much of the management research on Africa is biased towards western theories and
concepts; only a few researchers have tried to understand the concepts of leadership and motivation from
the perspective of African people. Studies that have focused on the cultural uniqueness of African
countries suggest that effective leadership styles and motivational tools in Africa are different from
Western countries; a paternalistic leadership style, tribal ties, non financial rewards, spirituality,
communalism, supportiveness and local concepts such as Ubuntu, play important roles in Africa. In
addition, there is no management research on the African Diaspora in Canada.
The overall objective of this study is to examine the similarities and differences in perceptions of effective
leadership and motivation in selected African countries and the African Diaspora in the Caribbean,
Canada and the United States. In this paper, we present results of focus groups of people of African
descent conducted in Canada. In future research, we will be conducting the focus groups in the other
countries.
Method
In order to avoid a ‘western’ bias, an emic approach was used. The research began with a ‘blank page’, by
asking respondents to define the concepts to be measured, rather than the researchers defining them. This
was done through the use of the Delphi Technique followed by the focus groups. The results of the Focus
groups held in Montreal are presented here.
Participants
To ensure accuracy of the focus group process, the procedure was run in Montreal on three different
occasions. The pilot study groups included black students from Concordia University, Montreal and the
second and third focus groups included working adults of African descent in Montreal from various
occupations.
Procedure
Barbour & Kitzinger (1999) defined focus groups as group discussions exploring a specific set of issues.
Recently focus groups have gained some social scientific respectability (Kahan, 2001) and have shown to
be useful both in qualitative and quantitative research (Morgan, 1988). In each focus group, the facilitator
began with an overview of the project. The facilitator encouraged discussion among the participants and
noted key responses while working to try to achieve consensus. After concluding the discussion, the
facilitator asked the group members to rank the top five items in order of importance. The item ranked as
most important was given a value of 5, the next most important a value of 4 and so on. The average score
per item, per focus group was determined. Therefore, the higher the average score, the more important
that item was believed to be by the members of that focus group.
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