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The Lingering Effect of Slavery and Colonial History on International Business: The Case of Sub-Saharan Africa

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The New Frontiers of International Business

Part of the book series: Contributions to Management Science ((MANAGEMENT SC.))

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Abstract

This chapter offers an insider’s view of the “big” questions that need to be explored by anybody interested in doing work in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). In addition to our own research, we have also worked extensively with MNEs, governmental agencies, and African scholars for more than two decades. This has led to our insights and conclusions on the most important questions that international business (IB) scholars should explore in Sub-Saharan Africa.

We offer broad suggestions, and there are many specific questions that can be asked under each of our themes. This is deliberate: To understand Sub-Saharan Africa requires an understanding of the diversity of the region and its recent historical past, both of which continue to shape institutions and the business environment and will do so for the foreseeable future. In this way, we suggest research themes that assist MNEs, stakeholders, and scholars to find relevant and practical approaches to problems such as the unique institutions and instability in SSA, understanding how the legacies of slavery and colonialism still influence the way of doing business in Africa and how MNEs subsidiaries interact with the complexity of stakeholders in the countries in SSA. The chapter begins by providing a necessary overview of the SSA region and how recent histories of slavery and colonialism have influenced FDI and IB in the region. We then introduce four research themes and suggest research questions that we feel scholars interested in SSA may want to engage with.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    https://www.economist.com/leaders/2011/12/03/africa-rising

  2. 2.

    North Africa in many ways is closer to the Middle East than to sub-Saharan Africa. In this chapter, we refer to SSA and Africa interchangeably.

  3. 3.

    The case of South Africa and its territory South-West Africa (now Namibia) is more ambiguous. Although South Africa gained formal independence from Britain in 1910, and Germany relinquished South-West Africa as a territory to South Africa in 1919, both were governed by a white minority regime under the Apartheid system. Namibia gained independence in 1990; South Africa had its first democratic elections in 1994 when, after a long struggle, the government of Nelson Mandela was elected.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Gordon Institute of Business Science, University of Pretoria, Johannesburg, South Africa

    Albert Wöcke & Helena Barnard

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  1. Albert Wöcke
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  2. Helena Barnard
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Correspondence to Albert Wöcke .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. St. Petersburg campus, University of South Florida, St. Petersburg, FL, USA

    Hemant Merchant

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Wöcke, A., Barnard, H. (2022). The Lingering Effect of Slavery and Colonial History on International Business: The Case of Sub-Saharan Africa. In: Merchant, H. (eds) The New Frontiers of International Business. Contributions to Management Science. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-06003-8_4

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