Hybrid Management
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Aloe - A hybrid that is highly adaptive to its African environment Afriland First Bank - Creating a class of entrepreneurs in Africa A tree of the savanah - providing shade and a place to discuss Offices of the Social Insurance Department in Yaonde, Cameroon - providing innovating ways to meet the needs of clients Victoria Hospital in the old Transkei, South Africa - providing essential services The Giraffe - rising above the challenges of the African landscape

Theories in Management and Change in Africa

Hybrid Management Systems in Africa

The nature of management in Africa is the result of a process of cultural crossvergence, resulting in a number of hybrid systems, some highly adaptive to their context, some maladaptive.

Influences on Management

Historical, cultural and power influences are leading to the development of different hybrid forms of management and organizations. Some are highly adaptive to the context in which they operate, some are mal-adaptive. To develop effective management, there is a need to understand the dynamics of hybridisation and to learn from the successes of those adaptive organizations, and from the shortcomings of those that are mal-adaptive.

Pejorative Views

The current literature on management in ‘developing’ countries generally (e.g. Jaeger and Kanungo, 1990) and management in Africa specifically (e.g. Blunt and Jones, 1992) presents a picture which sees management in these countries as fatalistic, resistant to change, reactive, short-termist, authoritarian, risk reducing, context dependent, and basing decisions on relationship criteria, rather than universalistic criteria. Apart from the pejorative nature of this description and contrast with ‘developed’ countries, there is the danger that the objective of development is to make the ‘developing’ world more like the ‘developed’ world, and that this should be reflected in the direction of organizational change and the way people are managed.

It is unfortunate that this perspective paints a rather negative picture of management in Africa, and one within the ‘developing-developed’ world paradigm that is not just pejorative, but actually hampers constructive research into the nature of management of people and change in Africa. Yet it is likely that the perceived ‘African’ approach reflects a colonial legacy rather than an indigenous approach to organizing. Indeed, the dynamics of management of organizations in Africa arise fundamentally from the interaction of African countries with foreign powers and corporations (often as an experience unique to a particular country, but also having aspects in common with other African countries), as well as through exposure to foreign management education (see post-instrumental systems). In addition, managers in Africa increasingly have to manage the cross-border dynamics as regional cooperation increases (Mulat, 1998), and have had to manage the internal dynamics of inter-ethnic cross-cultural difference and diversity since the ‘scramble for Africa’ ensured national boundaries which conformed to the claims of European powers rather than existing African ethnic divisions. If anything, ‘African Management’ is cross-cultural management.

Paradoxes

Although, as was said above, there are considerable differences among African countries, the paradox (and conflicts in policies and practices) between historical legacy and future requirements; between the need to downsize organizations through economic reform, to make them ‘meaner and leaner’ and globally competitive on the one hand and the future requirement to skill, re-skill and develop people in work organizations up to managerial levels on the other hand, may be understood through a conceptualisation of an antithesis between the cultural need in Africa to recognize people as having a value in their own right and as part of a social community, which may be in direct contradiction to a predominant Western view in organisation and management theory which sees people as a means to an end within the organization (Jackson, 1999). This perception of the direction and nature of the value that is placed on people in organizations, or locus of human value, which is shown as ‘Humanistic’ and ‘Instrumental’ cultural values in Figure 1, may be central to understanding at least one level of cross-cultural interaction within organizations in Africa. It may also be central to understanding many of the difficulties of managing people in organizations in Africa.

At this level of inter-continental cross-cultural interaction, in historical perspective, the concept of locus of human value in distinguishing an antithesis between an instrumental view of people in organizations which perceived people as a means to an end, and a humanistic view of people which sees people as having a value in their own right, and being an end in themselves may be more useful explored (Jackson, 1999). The western concept of ‘human resources’ typifies the former approach in its view of people as another resource to meet the ends of the organization. It is likely that this concept would predominate in post-colonial African organizations to a certain extent. Blunt and Jones’s (1992) assertion that post-colonial organization is input rather than output dependent may lead to the conclusion that such organization is not functionalistic in the sense of objective seeking. Yet it is difficult to conceptualise such organization as humanistic. Organizations in Japan and other East Asian countries may have been more successful in harnesses the latter approach in order to obtain employee commitment to the organization (Allinson, 1993), but organizations in Africa have largely not done this. Hence African workers themselves see work organizations as instrumental towards providing a contribution to their own livelihood (Blunt and Jones, 1992) and that of their communal group.

The instrumental-humanistic construct may avoid some of the pitfalls of applying a developing-developed dichotomy (as in Jaeger & Kanungo, 1990), and in applying a simplistic ‘individualism-collectivism’ model (Hofstede, 1991) to cultural analysis in explaining differences between indigenous and imported views of human relations.

Hybrid Management

The nature of management in Africa is therefore a hybrid in various forms that balance to varying degrees between instrumental and humanistic views of people, and combine Post-Colonial, Post-Instrumental and African Renaissance systems of management.

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