Africa: The New Frontier for Global Strategy Scholars

• Author: Michael J. Mol,Christian Stadler,Africa Ariño
• Date: 01 February 2017
• Published date: 01 February 2017
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/gsj.1146

AFRICA: THE NEW FRONTIER FOR GLOBAL

STRATEGY SCHOLARS

MICHAEL J. MOL ,

1,2

*CHRISTIAN STADLER,

3

and AFRICA ARIÑO

4

1

Department of Strategic Management and Globalization, Copenhagen

Business School, Frederiksberg, Denmark

2

Birmingham Business School, University of Birmingham, Birmingham,

U.K.

3

Strategy and International Business Group, Warwick Business School,

University of Warwick, Coventry, U.K.

4

Strategic Management Department, IESE Business School, University of

Navarra, Barcelona, Spain

Context matters in the global strategy literature. We discuss how Africa, as a setting

that received limited attention in the past, offers opportunity to challenge existing

theory and develop new insights. The overall goal is to ask: What will the field of

global strategic management look like once we have engaged with Africa in a simi-

lar manner as we have done with other emerging economies? We also introduce the

papers published in this special issue and highlight directions for future research.

Copyright © 2016 Strategic Management Society.

INTRODUCTION

Silence. That is the one word that has best categor-

ized the strategic management and international

business literatures when it comes to Africa. This

stands in stark contrast to the increasing number of

articles using data from other emerging economies,

particularly Asian countries like India and China

(see the special research forum in Academy of Man-

agement Journal, for example, Barkema et al.,

2015). While Africa presents a particular challenge

for scholars in terms of data access and funding for

universities to support research, there is now hope

that this silence will not last much longer.

A primary reason for this optimism is the oppor-

tunity presented by Africa as an un(der)explored

context. The efforts directed toward China and

India allowed scholars to challenge established

ideas such as the inverted u-shape relationship

between performance and diversification level

(Khanna and Palepu, 2000; Palich, Cardinal, and

Miller, 2000). These authors have also drawn atten-

tion to phenomena such as the role of the state in

internationalization (Peng and Heath, 1996) or

institutional voids in host countries (Khanna and

Palepu, 2000). In global strategy, context is not just

a control variable, but a central construct that

shapes theory (Tallman and Pedersen, 2015). Not

studying Africa means that we will not be able to

develop theory that explains the mechanisms of the

informal economy and the transition from informal

to formal economy firms. It means that we will not

be able to fully appreciate the new ecosystems that

mobile payment systems such as MPESA created.

And it means that we will not fully understand the

complex relationship between business and politics.

The second reason why silence is unlikely to

prevails is Africa’s rise. Again taking China and

*Correspondence to: Michael J. Mol, Copenhagen Business

School, Kilevej 14A, 2000 Frederiksberg, Denmark.

E-mail: mmo.smg@cbs.dk

Copyright © 2016 Strategic Management Society

Global Strategy Journal

Global Strategy Journal, 7:3–9 (2017)

Published online in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com). DOI: 10.1002/gsj.1146