Page 92 - University of Pretoria RESEARCH REVIEW 2018

African markets –
networks, difference and responsible management
Ian Macleod, GIBS Centre for African Management and Markets (CAMM)
Under the tagline ‘Build. Connect. Do.’, the GIBS Centre for African Management and Markets, or CAMM, conducts research into the markets and management philosophies of African countries and companies, while fostering dialogue and sharing knowledge on the economies of the continent. The Centre was launched in
Nicola Kleyn, Dean: GIBS
September 2018 with the inaugural Business of Africa Conference at the Illovo
campus in Johannesburg. Covering topics ranging from governance and sovereign ratings to the complex commercial relationship between African countries and China, the event set the tone for CAMM’s networking and research agenda.
Two pieces of academic work out
of CAMM reflect the challenges
of unsatisfactory institutional environments in Africa. In one, CAMM fellow and GIBS researcher Professor Albert Wöcke, along with GIBS Kerry Chipp and Manoj Chiba, describe an as-yet unstudied mode of market entry in their paper accepted for publication by the European Business Review, ‘Overcoming African Institutional Voids: Market entry with networks’.
Noting that the literature on modes of entry into new markets had focused on firm-level strategies, predominantly using institutional theory and the resource-based view, this paper applies a novel lens: network theory. More specifically, the authors argue that a loose network, known as a bridging network, is a mode of cross- border market entry particularly
well-suited to emerging markets, such as exist in Africa, where firms very often move into environments where networks and other institutions are lacking or, indeed, are non-existent.
The authors use existing theory and case examples to submit that these alliances of multiple firms entering markets together as an extension of an existing loose network are often preferable to entry as a single firm in an African context.
GIBS postdoctoral researcher and CAMM manager Tess Onaji-Benson has looked at African institutions from a second unconventional angle. In
a paper she co-authored with two UK-based academics, ‘Navigating Institutional Differences in Africa: Moving beyond the institutional voids perspective’, Onaji-Benson critiques the institutional void thesis itself. Key to the argument is that while formal, Western-style institutions are widely lacking in Africa, care must be taken not to ignore the informal institutions that nonetheless emerge.
Studying the topic through case studies of multinational entities (MNEs) operating on the continent, Onaji-Benson and her co-authors argue that it is not a case of one or
Adrian Saville, Director: CAMM
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