Working With Africans

Returning to Africa

The economic and financial crisis has drastically affected the job market in many Western countries and the prospects are gloomy for the near future. With Africa featuring encouraging economic indicators, many experts are now considering the continent as The place to be. Today, many investors and workers alike are tempted by the idea of repatriation.  [...]

African entrepreneurs venturing beyond their borders

In the context of the liberalization of African economies, entrepreneurs are encouraged to venture outside the borders of their too narrow domestic market in order to sell their goods and services to foreign clients in other African countries, in Europe or elsewhere. Supports services and capacity building are continuously provided to those African entrepreneurs both [...]

Culture and Management Education

At a time, when many social scientists were trying to identify the most appropriate leadership and management styles that would be suitable in different societies, I was attempting to do the same in the African countries where I was based. However, the search for the local workers’ values and attitudes as well as expectations to [...]

Best Practices, Golden Rules and Cultures

The achievement of a business‘ goals supposes the implementation of various disciplines, knowledge, and technologies.  From the effective implementation of change to the effective use of a new technology, every aspect of work operations is envisioned as a pure technique unaffected by the people who are learning and implementing them. Supported by an abundant literature [...]

Blunders in International Business

Successful entrepreneurs in their domestic market may wonder what kinds of gaffes can be made when dealing with potential foreign business partners. A misperception of what foreign clients and suppliers say or do but also how they behave and act during the different stages of the business interactions frequently results in misunderstandings. As a result, an inappropriate reaction [...]