Principles
Principles
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Resources for Management and Change in Africa
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Themes in Management and Change in AfricaManagement PrinciplesMaintaining
a high level of awareness of the contributing factors to the way the
organization is managed through principles, policies and practices, and their
appropriateness to the socio-cultural contexts within which the organization
operates
One
of the concerns of the study by Jackson (1999) in South Africa was the apparent
antithesis between Western and non-Western ideas of organization and management:
between an idea of people as a resource (human resource management) and people
with a value in themselves (reflected in the word 'Ubuntu', from a Xhosa proverb
'Ubuntu ungamntu ngabanye abantu' - people are people through other people). It
may be possible to reconcile this antithesis, but it would seem logical that
before this can happen, managers should be aware of these different
perspectives. In Jackson's (1999) study the consensus was that people should be
valued in their own right, they should be consulted, and they should be treated
fairly and ethically in an organization that is not merely concerned with
short-term results and making profits. However the general perception was that
the organization regarded people as a valuable resource above the well being of
people in the organisation. Whilst
the 1999 study indicated that organizations are addressing the developmental
aspects of people, there still seems to be a gap between humanistic and
developmental intentions of organizations and their instrumental orientation. It
may also be that there is still a low articulation of an ‘African’ approach.
This may be in part due to a lack of conscious management of multiculturalism at
the level of managing a culturally diverse workforce with different
expectations. Hence, it is also likely that organizations will have to:
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