Africa Journal of Management
ISSN: (Print) (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rajm20
The role of leaders in building research cultures
in sub-Saharan African universities: A six-nation
study
Bill Buenar Puplampu, Stella Nkomo, Yvonne du Plessis, Jolly Byarugaba
Kabagabe, Evelyn Chiyevo Garwe, Juliana Namada, Kemi Ogunyemi, Juliet
Thondhlana, Inusah Abdul-Nasiru, Añulika Agina, Kwesi Amponsah-Tawiah,
Rosemary Danesi, Justice Gameli Djokoto, Denise Diana Duncan, Joseph
Lekunze, Simon McGrath, Joyce Ndegwa, Nancy Ngowa, Michael Ofori Ntow,
Emily Ayieta Ondondo, Ravinder Rena & Maxwell Sandada
To cite this article: Bill Buenar Puplampu, Stella Nkomo, Yvonne du Plessis, Jolly Byarugaba
Kabagabe, Evelyn Chiyevo Garwe, Juliana Namada, Kemi Ogunyemi, Juliet Thondhlana, Inusah
Abdul-Nasiru, Añulika Agina, Kwesi Amponsah-Tawiah, Rosemary Danesi, Justice Gameli Djokoto,
Denise Diana Duncan, Joseph Lekunze, Simon McGrath, Joyce Ndegwa, Nancy Ngowa, Michael
Ofori Ntow, Emily Ayieta Ondondo, Ravinder Rena & Maxwell Sandada (2022) The role of leaders
in building research cultures in sub-Saharan African universities: A six-nation study, Africa Journal
of Management, 8:2, 171-193, DOI: 10.1080/23322373.2022.2039050
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AFRICA JOURNAL OF MANAGEMENT
2022, VOL. 8, NO. 2, 171–193
https://doi.org/10.1080/23322373.2022.2039050
The role of leaders in building research cultures in
sub-Saharan African universities: A six-nation study
Bill Buenar Puplampua, Stella Nkomo b, Yvonne du Plessis c,
Jolly Byarugaba Kabagabed, Evelyn Chiyevo Garwe e, Juliana Namadaf,
Kemi Ogunyemig, Juliet Thondhlana h, Inusah Abdul-Nasiru i, Añulika Agina g,
Kwesi Amponsah-Tawiahi, Rosemary Danesij, Justice Gameli Djokoto a,
Denise Diana Duncana, Joseph Lekunzec, Simon McGrath h, Joyce Ndegwaf,
Nancy Ngowak, Michael Ofori Ntowa, Emily Ayieta Ondondol, Ravinder Rena c and
Maxwell Sandadam
aCentral University, Ghana; bUniversity of Pretoria, South Africa; cNorth-West University, South Africa;
dMakerere University Business School, Uganda; eZimbabwe Ezekiel Guti University, Zimbabwe; fUnited
States International University – Africa, Kenya; gPan-Atlantic University, Nigeria; hUniversity of Nottingham,
UK; iUniversity of Ghana, Ghana; jUniversity of Lagos, Nigeria; kPwani University, Kenya; lJaramogi Oginga
Odinga University of Science and Technology, Kenya; mUniversity of Zimbabwe, Zimbabwe
ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY
Existing research attributes the problem of weak research Received 8 June 2020
productivity of academics in African universities primarily to Accepted 19 October 2021
institutional resource poverty and inadequate research skills.
However, there has been little attention to research cultures and RESPONSIBLE EDITORConstant D. Beugré
the role of leaders in fostering productive ones. Drawing from the
literature on organizational culture, this study examines the role KEYWORDS
of university leaders in developing research cultures. The study research culture;
explores how institution leaders do this within the higher organization culture;
education contexts in their countries. The empirical work is based leadership; African
on qualitative interviews with senior and mid-level university universities
leaders in six countries in sub-Saharan Africa. While all of the
leaders espoused clear views about the elements of a productive
research culture, results indicate a significant gap remains
between espoused values for research and the actual research
culture. Theoretically, the research extends the concept of
research cultures by demonstrating the complex dynamics
between research cultures, culture embedding mechanisms, and
leader behavior within contextual constraints.
1. Introduction
Compared to the rest of the world, Africa lags in research productivity. Although Africa’s
share of world research articles almost doubled from 1.2 percent to 2.3 percent during the
period 1996–2012, more recent data indicate that despite the continued growth in the
continent’s research production, it generates less than 1 percent of global research (Duer-
meijer, Amir, & Schoombe, 2018; Schemm, 2013). The scientific impact for most African
countries remains below that of the world average (Confraria & Godinho, 2015).
CONTACT Stella Nkomo Stella.Nkomo@up.ac.za © 2022 Africa Academy of Management
Africa Journal of Management is co-published by NISC Pty (Ltd) and Informa Limited (trading as Taylor & Francis Group)
172 B. B. PUPLAMPU ET AL.
Furthermore, the bulk of Africa’s research productivity originates from only a few
countries: Algeria, Egypt, Kenya, Morocco, Nigeria, South Africa, and Tunisia (Duermeijer
et al., 2018). Researchers use “productivity” in a broad generic sense to refer to the overall
research outcomes of universities which promote the production, use, and dissemination
of knowledge to the benefit of society as well as the local and international standing of
the university (e.g. Gibbons et al., 1994; Vasileiadou & Vliegenthart, 2009).
The continued low research productivity has several consequences for the continent.
Some studies suggest that Africa’s development challenge may in part be linked to its
low research productivity (Cloete, Maassen, & Bailey, 2015). Another consequence of low
research productivity is the lack of indigenous theories and over-reliance on knowledge pro-
duced in the global North (Mamdani, 2011; Ndlovu-Gatsheni, 2013; Nkomo, 2015). In other
words, knowledge derived from scholarly activities in countries within Africa would likely
assist in the development of context relevant solutions for socio-economic development.
The default explanation for the poor state of research and scholarship in various
countries in Africa is that academic and other research-oriented knowledge workers
operate in a resource-poor environment. Studies point to inadequate research infrastruc-
tures, limited access to library resources, funding constraints, poor technology systems
and equipment, and the excessive teaching demands placed upon academic staff
(Cloete et al., 2015; Kazeroony, Du Plessis, & Puplampu, 2016; Mouton, 2010; Ngobeni,
2010; Sawyerr, 2004). The second body of research points to insufficient research capacity
and skills among academic staff (e.g. Habib & Morrow, 2006; Nkomo, 2015).
While these structural explanations are important, they tend to overlook behavioral
factors that include the role of leaders and research cultures. Specifically, there has
been very little attention paid to research cultures and the role of leaders in fostering
them in African universities. The sparse research conducted suffers from two limitations.
First, the concept of research culture is underspecified and its definition is implicit rather
than explicit. Second, the existing research conducted in Africa focuses on how academic
staff perceives research cultures rather than the role of leaders in shaping them (e.g.
Musiige & Maassen, 2015; North, Zewotir, & Murray, 2011). Consequently, very little is
known about how leaders of African universities perceive and enact their roles in fostering
productive research cultures within the unique context of the continent.
We address this gap by studying how leaders understand their roles in facilitating and
influencing research cultures in African universities. The research reported in this paper
constitutes Phase I of the Organizational and Research Culture of African Universities
Project (ORCA), a multi-phase research study, focused on organizational and research cul-
tures in sub-Saharan African institutions.
The structure of universities in sub-Saharan Africa reflects colonial legacies and present
post-colonial challenges. Hence, the overall project adopted a relational approach that
incorporates the importance of the macro-national level context for understanding the
mesa-organizational level practices (i.e. research culture) and micro-level perceptions
and behaviors. Phase I of the project collected data from senior and mid-level university
leaders through semi-structured interviews to ascertain: (a) challenges to developing
research cultures; (b) the values and practices of a productive research culture; and (c)
the role of leaders in fostering productive research cultures. We also gathered
archival data on the national higher education context and academic staff profile of
each country.
AFRICA JOURNAL OF MANAGEMENT 173
The research in this paper makes three important contributions to understanding
research cultures in African universities. First, it reveals the challenges leaders face in
building strong research cultures within difficult national contexts. Second, it identifies
the values, behaviors, and practices that leaders believe to be important in facilitating
research productivity. Third, the study offers a clearer definition of the concept of research
culture and the embedding mechanisms available to leaders for building research
cultures.
2. Theoretical Foundation
Organization culture theory provided the theoretical foundation for exploring the role of
leadership in building research cultures in African universities. Organizational culture has
been a revolutionizing concept in the management and organizational behavior sciences
since the early 1980s when pioneering scholar Edgar Schein theorized its nature and
manifestations within organizations (Schein, 1985).
Schein (2010, p. 18) defined organization culture as “a pattern of shared basic assump-
tions learned by a group as it solved its problems of external adaptation and internal inte-
gration, which has worked well enough to be considered valid and, therefore, to be
taught to new members as the correct way to perceive, think, and feel in relation to
those problems.” According to Schein (2010), culture manifests itself in organizations
through three fundamental layers: artifacts, espoused values, and basic underlying
assumptions. While artifacts and espoused values are observable (e.g. symbols, rituals,
practices, structures, processes, language, values, mission and vision statements), basic
assumptions are unobservable but are core to an organization’s culture as they shape
how members think and act (Ostroff, Kinicki, & Muhammad, 2012; Schneider, Ehrhart, &
Macey, 2013).
Tsui, Wang, and Xin (2006), drawing on other scholars, argue that organizational
culture derives from the history of an organization, is socially created, and is about the
beliefs and behaviors of members of an organization (Ashkanasy, Wilderom, & Peterson,
2000; Giorgi, Lockwood, & Glynn, 2015). Schein (2010) positioned leaders as the primary
agents in the defining and shaping of organizational cultures. A growing body of litera-
ture has shown that organizational and member outcomes are closely linked to the
enabling characteristics of organization culture, its leadership, and its internal procedural
mechanisms. A substantial body of research confirms the impact of organizational culture
on the lived experiences of organizational members (e.g. Erdogan, Liden, & Kraimer, 2006;
Gregory, Harris, Armenakis, & Shook, 2009; Hartnell, Ou, & Kinicki, 2011; Ogbonna & Harris,
2000; Van den Berg & Wilderom, 2004); firm-level performance (Kim & Chang, 2019;
Prajogo & McDermott, 2011; Tsui et al., 2006) and innovation (e.g. Hogan & Coote, 2014).
Despite the extant literature demonstrating the relationship between organizational
culture and important outcomes, there has been some debate and hesitation about
extending these understandings to universities. Some of the pioneering work on organ-
izational culture and higher education was done by Clark (1983). Clark (1983) proposed
three levels of culture in higher education: the culture of the discipline, the culture of
the enterprise (i.e. organizational culture), and the culture of the academic profession
and/or national system. Clark’s (1983) conceptualization spurred research on the role of
administrators and managers in organizational culture (Dill, 2012). These studies included
174 B. B. PUPLAMPU ET AL.
analyses of how the specific behaviors of institutional leaders may help embed or transmit
organizational culture and how strategies, practices, and processes characteristic of the
general management literature may influence organizational culture and adaptation in
higher education (Dill, 2012).
3. Conceptual Framework
While organizational culture refers to the culture of the entire organization, scholars
acknowledge the existence of sub-cultures which are manifestations of varied forms
and norms within the larger whole (Giorgi et al., 2015; Lumby, 2012; Schneider et al.,
2013). Thus, the research culture of a university can be conceptualized as a subset of
the broader organizational culture. Drawing from Schein’s (1985) seminal work on organ-
ization culture, Evans (2007, p. 2) defined a research culture as “shared values, assumptions,
beliefs, rituals and other forms of behavior whose central focus is the acceptance and recog-
nition of research practices and output as a valued, worthwhile and preeminent activity.”
However, she did not fully theorize how leaders can embed research cultures within uni-
versities. We extend Evans (2007) definition by conceptualizing the linkage between
organization culture, research culture, and leader behavior by applying Schein’s (1985)
identification of the primary and secondary embedding mechanisms leaders can
employ to create, communicate, and manage culture.
In our conceptual framework, the three main influences on research culture are the
larger organizational culture, institutional responses to the higher education context,
and the role of leaders (see Figure 1). A research culture takes its roots from the organiz-
ation’s culture. Drawing from Schein (2010), the three levels of a research culture are the
Figure 1. Conceptual framework: Building a research culture (drawing on Evans, 2007; Pratt, Margar-
itis, & Coy, 1999; Puplampu, 2015; Schein, 2010).
AFRICA JOURNAL OF MANAGEMENT 175
artifacts or visible institutionalized processes, practices, and structures for research, the
espoused values and beliefs related to research, and the basic assumptions which are
the taken-for-granted beliefs about research revealed through the actual research behav-
ior of academic staff. Research behavior refers to the specific activities that a faculty
member engages in to produce research through scholarly efforts. This may include
but is not limited to: choosing to spend time on research, identifying research projects,
seeking research funding, supervising student research, finding research collaborators,
participating in opportunities to improve relevant skills, pursuing quality work rather
than quantity towards promotion, and obtaining doctorates.
Schein (2010, p. 3) positioned leaders as the main architects of an organization’s
culture and argued that it is ultimately created, embedded, and manipulated by them.
As shown in Figure 1, a prerequisite for performing this architectural role in building
research cultures is an understanding of the macro-national context (i.e. higher education
environment and regulations) in which the university functions. Leader culture creation
actions and academic staff behavioral responses feedback into the institution’s research
culture process. We use broken feedback lines because of the nature of academic staff
response. Feedback and reciprocal impacts are far from linear or directly predictable.
Schein (2010, p. 236) identified ten mechanisms leaders can leverage in their efforts to
shape organization cultures (see Table 1). Primary mechanisms are the most influential
and consist of: (1) what leaders pay attention to, measure, and control; (2) how leaders
Table 1. Culture-embedding mechanisms available to leaders.
Primary mechanisms for fostering cultures in
organizations Primary mechanisms for fostering research cultures
What leaders pay attention to, measure, and control What are the metrics used to measure the status of research at
on a regular basis the university? What is the relative emphasis placed on
quantity versus quality? Does the status of research
performance feature in communications from leaders?
How leaders react to critical incidents and How do leaders respond to research underperformance?
organizational crises
How leaders allocate resources What are the direct and indirect resources provided to faculty to
do research and how are these resources allocated?
Deliberate role modeling, teaching, and coaching Do leaders role model, teach or coach the importance of
research?
How leaders allocate rewards and status What do leaders reward? Who are the valued faculty members?
How leaders recruit, select, promote, compensate How does research feature in faculty appointments, promotions,
and excommunicate organizational members development and terminations? Does research form a key
aspect of HRM decisions?
Secondary mechanisms for fostering cultures in Secondary mechanisms for fostering
organizations research cultures
Organization design and structure What levels do research structures occupy within the university
structure? What are the reporting lines for leaders charged with
driving research?
Organizational systems and procedures What are the management systems and procedures in place for
research? How much funding and resources do they manage?
Organizational rites and rituals How are research achievements celebrated? Who gets
celebrated?
Design of physical space, facades, and buildings What is the physical infrastructure for research (e.g. library,
laboratories, research hubs)
Stories about events and people What stories do leaders tell about research and researchers?
Formal statements of organizational philosophy, Is research visible in the mission statement, in internal and
creeds and charters external communication? Is there a formal statement of
research strategy, research values?
Source: Adapted from Schein (2010, p. 236).
176 B. B. PUPLAMPU ET AL.
react to critical incidents or crises; (3) deliberate role modeling of values by leaders; (4)
criteria leaders use for allocating rewards and status allocation; and (5) the criteria for
recruitment, selection, promotion, retirement, and termination of members. Secondary
mechanisms are (1) organization’s design and structure; (2) organizational systems and
procedures; (3) design of physical space, facades, and buildings; (4) stories, legends,
and myths about important events and people; and (5) formal statements of organiz-
ational philosophy, values, and mission. We translate these mechanisms into the research
culture creation process (see Table 1). For example, what leaders pay attention to may
translate into the metrics they use to measure the status of research at the university
as well as the relative emphasis placed on quantity versus quality of scholarly work.
Based on this conceptual framework, we investigated (a) how leaders in selected
African universities perceive the challenges to building research cultures; (b) the impor-
tant values and practices relating to research efforts in their respective institutions; and
(c) their roles in fostering strong research cultures.
4. Methodology
4.1. Research Design
We used an interpretive phenomenological approach (IPA) for the study. IPA seeks to
explore participants’ self-understandings and sense-making processes, rather than
measuring objective constructs (Creswell & Creswell, 2017; Gephart, 2004). It aims to
capture and qualitatively understand the meanings and interpretations that actors sub-
jectively attach to phenomena to describe and explain their behavior (Gephart, 2004).
IPA is often used to develop insights into unexplored phenomena (Gephart, 2004).
The existing literature on low research outputs in Africa shows that studies have not
learned directly from university leaders how they perceive research cultures and how
they enact their roles in building such cultures. A substantial body of research has long
established a relationship between perceptions and behaviors. That is, the organizational
cues, rules, and scripts that individuals make sense of daily ultimately drive behavioral
responses (e.g. Czarniawska-Joerges, 1992; Katz & Kahn, 1978; Weick, 1995). These rules
and scripts reside in the culture and are evident through a series of tangible and intangi-
ble cues that dispose organization members to act in specific, discernable, and observable
ways (Franklin & Pagan, 2006). Our research approach is also congruent with Schein’s
(2010, p. 3) assertion that leaders are the main architects of cultures in organizations.
4.2. Sample and Data Collection
Since our goal was to gain access to participants willing to provide in-depth, rich infor-
mation about their self-understandings of research cultures, we adopted a two-tier
sampling approach to access those responsible for leading research in their universities.
Recognizing that Africa consists of 54 countries and 1,522 universities, we focused on
countries within the project’s resource constraints where it was possible to locate
leaders willing to devote the time to participate in the interviews. Consequently, the
research was conducted in six countries: two countries in East Africa (Kenya and
Uganda), two in West Africa (Ghana and Nigeria), and two in Southern Africa (South
AFRICA JOURNAL OF MANAGEMENT 177
Africa and Zimbabwe). Within each country, we identified a sample of universities using
the following criteria: inclusion of both public and private universities; have graduated a
minimum of four (4) cohorts of students; an academic staff population of at least 100 and
a student population of 5,000 for public universities, and an academic staff population of
50 and a student population of 2,500 for private universities at the time of data collection.
Our final sample consisted of 23 universities, 15 public and 8 private that agreed to par-
ticipate in the research.
Next, we purposively selected interviewees in the 23 universities (Suri, 2011). Partici-
pants had to meet the following criteria: (a) hold a leadership position in the governance
structure of the university (e.g. Vice-Chancellor, President, Pro-Vice-Chancellor, Provost,
Research Head/Director, Dean, or Head of Department) and (b) agree to the time require-
ments to participate in the study. Our final sample consisted of 57 leaders.
The primary data collection method was semi-structured interviews supplemented
with archival data. Interviews lasted 1–1.5 h and were taped and transcribed except in
cases where notes were preferred by interviewees. The interview protocol focused on:
(a) challenges to building research cultures; (b) values and practices of a research
culture; and (c) the role of leaders in building research cultures. Follow-up questions
were used to clarify responses. Participants were promised anonymity.
Interpretivism also stresses the importance of understanding the historical and social
context in which participants are embedded (Creswell & Creswell, 2017). To contextualize
the data collected on participants’ self-understandings of building research cultures, we
also collected archival data on the colonial and higher education history, governance
and funding structures for higher education, national population, number of universities,
student population, key national higher education challenges, and national academic
staff profile of the six countries. Finally, we reviewed relevant university documents
shared by participants (e.g. vision statements, research missions, research policy
documents, etc.). Hence, the combination of interview and archival data allowed us to tri-
angulate insights into how leaders perceive and enact their roles to build research cultures.
4.3. National Higher Education Context
Higher education during colonialism did not serve the interests of African societies but
those of the colonizers (Abrokwaa, 2017). The six countries experienced heterogeneous
forms of colonial rule although Britain was the main colonizer (Lange, 2004; Odukoya,
2018). Three of the countries, Ghana, Nigeria, and Uganda, were subjected to indirect
rule (Lange, 2004). Kenya, South Africa, and Zimbabwe (formerly Rhodesia) were sub-
jected to various forms of settler colonialism (Odukoya, 2018).
Under indirect rule, the traditional elite (i.e. chiefs) and indigenous institutions retained
some administrative and legal power under the supervision of imperial governors (Lange,
2004). In contrast, under settler colonialism, the colonizers came to stay and imposed a
new political order for themselves that replaced indigenous political power (Odukoya,
2018). In the case of Kenya, there was an exodus of European settlers post-independence
compared to the permanent settlement of the British in Zimbabwe and both the British
and Dutch in South Africa.
Settler colonialism resulted in an earlier establishment of universities in South Africa
compared to the other five countries (e.g. Stellenbosch University was established in
178 B. B. PUPLAMPU ET AL.
1685). These universities were generally constructed for the settlers, not the native popu-
lation. Universities in Ghana, Kenya, Uganda, Nigeria, and Zimbabwe were established
much later and were tethered to institutions in Britain (Woldegiorgis & Doevenspeck,
2013). Despite heterogeneity in modes of colonial rule, the net effect was homogenous
– higher education systems designed to advance the interests of the colonial powers
(Odukoya, 2018; Rodney, 1974). Thus, universities were built on colonial principles and
European models of higher education. The curriculum was Eurocentric and did not
serve the needs of African societies. University education was not available to the
general population but used to produce a limited number of elite Africans to serve colo-
nial administration (Rodney, 1974).
In the post-colonial era, universities in the six countries function in very difficult circum-
stances because of the social, economic, and political problems facing their countries.
According to the archival data, the countries share some key challenges reflective of
the continuing struggle to overcome the legacies of colonial higher education. The archi-
val data provided details about the origins of universities in each of the six countries and
changes over the years. Post-independence all of the countries experienced growth in the
number of universities. For example, Ghana went from one university in 1960 to more
than eight public universities and over 50 private universities by the time of this research.
Governmental pressure to meet the demands for education has given priority to teaching
rather than research. However, government funding for higher education remains
inadequate. The archival data on faculty numbers and pay structures revealed that all
of the countries struggle with inadequate levels to meet student demand and increasing
the percentage with doctoral degrees.
4.4. Interview Data Analysis
The interview data were analyzed according to the stages of thematic analysis (King &
Brooks, 2018). Each country team was responsible for transcribing and familiarizing them-
selves with the content of the interviews. A coding guide was developed during a
meeting of the ORCA Project Team. During the meeting, teams independently applied
the coding to a sample of the interview transcriptions. A discussion was then held
about the appropriateness of the codes which led to the refinement and finalization of
a coding guide. For example, the key codes included leader behaviors, faculty behaviors,
research culture, research policies, research impact, research resources, leadership chal-
lenges, and motivation to engage. Thereafter, each country team used the coding
guide to code their respective interviews. Moving from open coding to second-order
coding, each team identified themes in the interview data for each country while ensuring
interrater reliability.
To facilitate comparison across countries, each country team prepared a summary of
the interview themes as well as key aspects of the national higher education context
from the archival data. Thereafter, two members of the Project Team aggregated and
consolidated the themes from the interview data into a final set of themes. The conso-
lidated themes were sent to all team members for further refinement and confirmation.
Table 2 provides an example of the final data structure resulting from this analysis
aggregation. This process allowed us to identify key themes across all of the interview
data.
AFRICA JOURNAL OF MANAGEMENT 179
Table 2. Example of data analysis approach and theme development.
Code name Description Raw data – sample quotes Theme
Leadership . How university leaders describe the challenges/ . It has been difficult to get staff and students to realize the importance of science and Undervaluation of
challenges barriers to creating and sustaining a research culture in the role of philosophical arguments in the conduct of quality research. research
their institutions . Theory is missing and true arguments cannot be made in support of quality research.
. Most academics just publish to meet their promotion and this leads them to produce
sub-quality research output.
. Because of the pressure to get promoted, people “write mushroom papers that do not
meet required standard for publication.”
. The culture at our university right now is a teaching culture. Research is not emphasized
as is expected in universities. Whereas if you look at the number of staff which we have,
and the output of research, it is not comparable. Right now, we just want to teach, and
research is very raw.
. The higher education system just incentivizes output and this creates a sausage
machine… production line of research outputs.
. We do not have statistical support services or proper language services here in our Resource limitations
environment.
. Most people (academics) tend to do research within the resources that they can
individually attract.
. I think everyone knows research funding is very difficult to come by, particularly in my
country.
. Our laboratories are under-equipped and also materials, when you talk about applied
sciences, the materials that are needed to carry out experiments are hard to come by.
. Our research is not really contextualized on the true African and South African Glocal tensions
dilemmas. What will research look like if it were decolonised?
. Our research must change lives. It must impact positively on the society.
. We have our own agendas. We have our own mandates, and the idea we are pushing is
a culture where we accept appreciate and tolerate the broader academic community,
but at the end of the day, remaining highly relevant to our local needs.
180 B. B. PUPLAMPU ET AL.
5. Findings
Overall, the analysis of the interview data indicates consistency among the dominant
themes that emerged from the data. The few differences we found were largely associ-
ated with the participant’s leadership rank. Perceptions of leaders at the Dean and
Head of Department (HOD) levels were more directed towards challenges at the oper-
ational level (i.e. teaching workloads and administrative burdens).
5.1. Challenges to Creating a Research Culture
Six themes were dominant in how leaders perceived the challenges impeding the devel-
opment of strong research cultures.
5.1.1. Undervaluation of Research
The main challenge perceived was a lack of appreciation of the importance of research in
a university, although several participants indicated that this was less of a problem within
science disciplines. Participants expressed this challenge in different ways. A Vice-Chan-
cellor described the research as being “raw”, “The culture at our university right now is a
teaching culture. Research is not emphasized as is expected in universities. Whereas if you
look at the number of academic staff which we have, and the output of research, it is not
comparable. Right now, we just want to teach, and research is very raw.” A Head of Depart-
ment (HOD) stated the challenge in these words, “It has been difficult to get academic staff
and students to realize the importance of science and the role of philosophical arguments in
the conduct of quality research.”
Leaders attributed this challenge to the legacy of teaching as the primary role of uni-
versities. As noted by this quote from a Vice-Chancellor, many of the universities started as
teaching institutions and the effects of this reality linger today, “It started as a teaching-
centered university rather than a research-centered university. Academic staffmembers prob-
ably felt that the job was only to do the teaching and there was very poor support in terms of
senior academics who could come and start to supervise. So, even if someone wanted to do
the research, they did not have a mentor.” As the archival data revealed, all the countries
were experiencing a huge demand for university education because of the growing
youth population. The continent has one of the highest youth populations in the world
and this places a significant demand on ensuring access to universities (World Economic
Forum, 2019). It is also important to note that compared to universities in the global
North, many of the universities in the sample would be considered relatively young insti-
tutions. Historically, due to colonialism, there were few universities for the general popu-
lation as the focus was on educating a small number of elite locals to support colonial
ends. The archival data revealed that the growth in African universities occurred in
most instances after independence. In the case of South Africa, the surge in university
enrollments reflects the increase in access for the majority Black population after the
end of apartheid in 1994.
A consequence of the under-appreciation of research was the pursuit of quantity
versus quality by academic staff. In addition to the tension between teaching and
research, leaders pointed to how incentive systems exacerbate the under-appreciation
of research as captured from a Dean, “The higher education system just incentivizes
AFRICA JOURNAL OF MANAGEMENT 181
output and this creates a sausage machine… a production line of research outputs.” In
several of the universities, there were monetary incentives for research quantity and
the number of articles published played a significant role in the promotion to a higher
academic rank. Consequently, it was perceived that academic staff holds an instrumental
view of research as summed up by this quote, “Because of the pressure to get promoted,
people write mushroom papers that do not meet required standards for publication.”
Often, promotion criteria are explicit about the number of articles required. For
example, a Pro-Vice-Chancellor shared the following criteria used by her university, “If
someone acquires a Ph.D. degree, he/she is automatically promoted to Senior Lecturer
Grade, and those with a Ph.D. joining the university from outside are permanently appointed
if they have at least five publications. We also have an open policy where those with 21 pub-
lications are promoted to Associate Professorship and a full Professor Grade requires 35
publications.”
5.1.2. Resource Limitations
The second main challenge was the inadequacy of research funds as well as a lack of infra-
structure to conduct high-quality research. Infrastructure support inadequacies ranged
from laboratory equipment to statistical support services and language assistance. For
example, a Dean shared the following reality, “Our laboratories are under-equipped.
When you talk about applied sciences, the materials that are needed to carry out experiments
are hard to come by.” The lack of resources restricts the type of research academic staff can
conduct. The words of a HOD summed up the perceptions about the effect of inadequate
resources on the type of research produced, “Most people [academics] tend to do research
within the resources that they can individually attract.”
5.1.3. Glocal Tensions
Another significant challenge is reconciling the tension between producing research with
local versus global relevance. All the leaders, regardless of rank, shared the on-going
dilemma about what kind of research African universities should produce. A dominant
view was the need for local relevance to be prioritized as reflected in this quote from a
Vice-Chancellor, “We have our own agendas. We have our own mandates, and the idea
we are pushing is a culture where we accept and tolerate the broader academic community,
but at the end of the day, remaining highly relevant to our local needs.” Yet, the data also
indicate this priority has not been fully achieved as captured in the words of a Dean, “Our
research is not really contextualized… on true African dilemmas. What will research look like
if it is decolonized?” The emphasis placed on Africanization of knowledge resonates with
its post-independence emergence and the more recent calls to decolonize African univer-
sities (e.g. Mamdani, 2016; Nyamnjoh, 2012).
5.1.4. Heavy Workloads
Heavy workloads and administrative burdens were also prominent themes in how they
described leadership challenges. These challenges were more likely to be shared by
HODs and Deans. Two quotes exemplify these challenges. “The one thing that gets me
down as Dean is the creeping managerialism. Documents have to be completed for every-
thing. We do not get time to focus on the core business – which is research.” It was expressed
this way by a HOD, “Most of our academics spend most of the time teaching, marking scripts,
182 B. B. PUPLAMPU ET AL.
releasing results, having meetings about results, supervising their students in such a way that
they do not have time for their own capacity development which is research.”
5.1.5. Anti-Research Behaviors
Leaders also shared challenges related to the attitudes and behaviors of academic staff.
Although leaders described academic staff who strove to do good research despite
inadequate funds and infrastructure and heavy teaching loads, they also pointed to
what we refer to as anti-research behaviors by academic staff. For example, academic
staff who did not engage in research with the resources available were described as
“unmotivated” or comfortable if they could get promoted by pursuing “low hanging
fruit” (i.e. achieving quantity by pursuing low-quality journals). Such faculty did not
seem to care much about the quality of their research as long as they had the quantity.
Leaders attributed this behavior to a lack of work commitment as captured in the follow-
ing quote, “Some of our colleagues are just interested in coming, teaching, and going away
… They say they have done their job without putting back anything into the system, which is
not ideal for the idea [of being an] academic.”
There was also general perception related to status differences between senior and
junior level academics and how this sometimes translated into behaviors detrimental
to research performance, “A lot of our senior colleagues don’t teach,” “… there are our col-
leagues who as soon as they become professors don’t go to any class again. They send their
junior colleagues to go and teach…” and “… if your junior sees that you don’t go to the
library to work on your paper, they would go that way too” … “university academics do
not value collaborations and hence it leads to lack of mentorship between senior and
junior academic staff.” We were surprised at the bluntness in which the leaders described
counterproductive academic staff research behaviors as captured by the following
phrases from participants, “People just want to have a pretense of doing”; “doing fake
research”; “not driven to do research”; “people are just lazy.”
5.1.6. Poor Research Skills
The final challenge was the lack of adequate research skills of academic staff. First, was the
large number of academic staff working on doctorates as noted by a Dean, “We have too
many young academics who are on staff development undertaking their Ph.D. I think three-
quarters of our members of staff are doing their doctorates.” The archival data revealed an
overall low percentage of academic staff with doctorates with the average national per-
centages ranging from a low of 11 percent in Uganda to a high of 46 percent in South
Africa. Second, participants also believed that the lack of research skills creates low
self-efficacy and confidence among academic staff to engage in research as
summed up by this quote from a Registrar, “When people don’t have these skills, they
are likely to not want to do a lot of research because they may feel that they are exposing
themselves.”
5.2. Role of Leaders in Building a Research Culture
Despite the significant challenges leaders shared, they had very clear views about the prac-
tices of a research culture in a university as well as their roles in creating and sustaining a
strong one. Several of the leaders were actively engaged in efforts to change the research
AFRICA JOURNAL OF MANAGEMENT 183
cultures of their institutions. The practices and roles they described reflect classic elements of
an enabling research culture that would be found in universities in the global North and other
developed regions of the world. The roles they described clustered into four themes: clarify-
ing research expectations and prioritizing the type of research; creating an enabling environ-
ment by providing resources; building the research capacity (skills and qualifications of
academic staff); and role modeling expected research behaviors.
5.2.1. Clarifying Research Expectations and Prioritizing the Type of Research
Participants believed that the role of leaders was to demand high-quality research and
clarify research expectations. Leaders believed it was important to be unequivocal
about research expectations, given the historical priority on teaching and little expec-
tation for high-quality research productivity. Leaders stressed placing a premium on
research in promotion decisions by articulating standards related to the quality of
research. For example, a Vice-Chancellor stated, “We changed our promotion culture to
focus more on the quality… integrity and impact rather than the number of publications.”
The urgency of this role was reflected in the strong language that participants used to
express it. For example, “We need to drum it, to let everybody be aware that without
research we cannot progress as an institution”; “The research policy is printed in black
and white for academics to see and feel’; and “Driving high-quality research and collabor-
ating between the private sector and the university and international bodies.” They also
stressed that monetary rewards were not the only way to reward research performance.
A Vice-Chancellor stated it this way, “Recognize people and not just always be about money,
but also give them a platform to speak or share their ideas.”
There was consistency across the data that leaders should stress the importance of
locally relevant research in setting performance expectations. The following quote from
a Vice-Chancellor illustrates what we generally heard from leaders about this priority,
“Our research is supposed to be pre-offering technological solutions to the problems that
the country is facing, be it your farmers, your miners, your manufacturers. That’s our immedi-
ate preoccupation.”
5.2.2. Creating an Enabling Environment and Providing Resources
This role was clearly articulated by a Pro-Vice-Chancellor, “Leadership needs to provide an
enabling environment. We need to provide resources so that we help colleagues who are
serious about research.” Participants emphasized providing tangible resources like
research facilities, seed money, and funding to attend international conferences as key
to fulfilling this role. There was less awareness of other environmental factors like redu-
cing teaching loads, sabbaticals, or research assistants, for example.
5.2.3. Building Research Capacity and Skills of Academic Staff
Perhaps unique to the African continent compared to Western universities is the empha-
sis the leaders placed on their roles in developing the research skills of academic staff. This
role had two dimensions. The first was putting in place structures and processes for devel-
oping the research skills of academic staff, especially the acquisition of quantitative skills.
Second, building capacity required increasing the number of academic staff with the skills
to supervise the research of post-graduate students and to also assist academic staff in
completing their doctorates.
184 B. B. PUPLAMPU ET AL.
5.2.4. Role Modeling Expected Research Behaviors
Modeling expected research behaviors were particularly dominant among Deans and
Heads of Departments who stressed the important role of leading by example. The
belief was that leaders at their levels needed to be focused and engaged with research.
The latter behavior was epitomized by the following quote from a Dean, “Lead by example
is a good practice as it shows interest and with that care of our people. Get commitment
through practice.” However, Deans lamented the lack of time to focus on their own
research because of heavy administrative responsibilities as summed up by one partici-
pant, “I think institutionally we have not been set up for research.”
6. Discussion
The research in this paper focused on understanding the role of leaders in fostering
enabling research cultures and the challenges associated with their efforts. The vision
and/or mission statements of a majority of the universities in our sample contained
goals to be world-class, internationally recognized, or a leading university in Africa.
Only three universities did not have explicit statements about research.
The participants’ understandings of the practices of a research culture were generally
consistent with empirical findings from other parts of the world (Deem & Lucas, 2007; Dill,
2012; Evans, 2007; Ion & Castro Ceacero, 2017). However, our analysis of the historical and
national context of the countries in our sample suggests their perceptions should be
understood within the historical and post-colonial realities affecting higher education.
Inadequate resources were among the challenges identified due to increasing student
demand and stagnant government funding. This result corroborates the findings of
Sawyerr (2004) and others Atuahene (2011) which reveal a poor resource environment
as a major contributor to poor research performance in various African countries. At
the same, the results also suggest that providing resources for research may only be a
partial answer to fostering strong research cultures in African universities.
While all of the leaders in the sample espoused clear views about the elements of a
productive research culture, results indicate a significant gap remains between espoused
values for research and the actual research culture. As organization culture theory
suggests, it is the actual practices and systems in place that influence the behaviors of
academic staff rather than the values espoused by leaders. It is these practices and
systems that shape “the day-to-day way we do things around here” (Schein, 2010, p. 3).
Thus, until leaders can significantly influence “the day-to-day way we do research
around here”, attitudes and behaviors of academic staff will be difficult to change. A
major problem for the leaders in our sample was the appropriate leveraging and align-
ment of embedding mechanisms.
For example, one of the identified anti-research behaviors of academic staff was
the pursuit of quantity versus quality research. Tying promotion to quality research
seems like an obvious solution. However, for the most part, the institutions
sampled pursued reward and promotion systems which are linked to the number
of publications. Given the compounding problem of low salaries of academics and
inadequate funding for research, a catch-22 situation unfolds with some academic
staff teaching at several universities to supplement their salaries. The time devoted
to extra teaching may inhibit the pursuit of quality research (Wangenge-Ouma,
AFRICA JOURNAL OF MANAGEMENT 185
Lutomiah, & Langa, 2015). However, leaders in this study acknowledged there are
some academics who make great attempts to be productive and do good quality
research despite inadequate resources.
7. Conclusions
The results of this research make three important theoretical contributions. First, the
findings show that leader influence on the research fortunes of universities is
neither linear nor simple. Second, the definitions offered by Schein (2010) on organiz-
ational culture and Evans (2007) on research culture while seminal and instructive
assume a shared reality which may not necessarily be so. The findings lean more
towards a contested reality and to perhaps the existence of “positive” and “negative”
or commendable and not so commendable elements of the research cultures encoun-
tered. The frustration of the leaders in our sample where their interventions do not
seem to have the intended effects was palpable. Their efforts to drive increased scho-
larly productivity may not necessarily rest on achieving a unified or shared set of
values, behaviors, and practices, but rather on an acceptance of the presence of a mul-
tiplicity of behavioral possibilities.
Finally the data, as well as evidence from other scholars, suggest that the research
environment in universities is informed by many internal and external contextual
factors and are evolving realities that can indeed be molded by a recognition of the
complex nature of research cultures. This, added to the present reality that the current
higher education contexts in the countries sampled reflect colonial and postcolonial chal-
lenges that constrain the influence of university leaders (Barnard, Cuervo-Cazurra, &
Manning, 2017), suggest that context will be a significant moderator of Schein’s (2010)
notion of the impact of leaders in shaping culture.
Thus, based on our findings we propose the following definition of research culture:
the mixed range of individual and collective values, behaviors, and institutional prac-
tices of a university (or other knowledge-based organization) built up over time
within a particular internal and national context which inform the level of research
uptake by organization members and have a direct impact on individual and organiz-
ational research productivity. Our definition addresses the following complexities of the
concept:
(a) The values that underlie research prospects may vary within the institution, thus
allowing for the possibility of different levels of research uptake in different parts
of the university.
(b) Specific behaviors are identifiable which may be deployed differently by different
organization members which enable research productivity to be realized.
(c) The range of institutionalized practices may enhance or regress research efforts.
(d) The efforts of leaders towards improving research productivity require attention to
these antecedent culture issues as the responsiveness of academic staff members
cannot be deemed into existence but rather skillfully negotiated as part of a
culture embedding process over time.
(e) The macro-level (national) context is a significant factor in the influence leaders can
exert on research cultures
186 B. B. PUPLAMPU ET AL.
7.1. Embedding Research Culture
Our findings have practical implications for university leaders in Africa who want to foster
strong research cultures. This study suggests that leaders need to establish the appropri-
ate structures and systems and to engage in intentional culture embedding actions (Table
1). In so doing, leaders need to pay close attention to the alignment of their actions. For
example, demanding quality research will not succeed without structural interventions to
enable it. Leader actions have to be directed towards influencing the research behaviors
of academic staff. The research behaviors in question include: choosing to spend time
doing research rather than engaging in multiple teaching at different universities;
responding to opportunities to improve relevant skills; pursuing quality work rather
than quantity – which is targeted – towards promotion; working to obtain doctoral or
terminal degrees; actively seeking research funding, grants and so on; and working on
credible research projects. Leaders need to model and align institutional mechanisms
towards encouraging such behaviors. For example, leaders could ensure that promotion
criteria reward quality research rather than quantity and commend credible, collaborative
research projects within universities, as well as across the continent and internationally.
Promotion criteria for senior academics should include mentoring and development of
junior academics. Efforts should be made to reward research that addresses local needs.
Furthermore, leaders should address issues of poor remuneration of academic staff as a
means of reducing the workload resulting from engagement in other activities or jobs
outside of the university. Remuneration policies may require some differentiation
between disciplines – contentious though this may seem. Adequate remuneration may
enable academic staff to concentrate more on research within their primary university
affiliation. Of course, the latter will not be easy, given the socio-economic context of
many African countries and inadequate government funding for universities. Research
capacity development programs for academic staff should, in addition to providing tech-
nical support, focus on enhancing self-efficacy and fostering positive attitudes about the
importance of research (Griffioen & de Jong, 2015).
We suggest that with attention to these types of embedding mechanisms, it should be
possible to enhance the research culture, realign research behaviors and ultimately improve
research productivity. We define research productivity as the: individual and collective build-
up of research outcomes which demonstrate that the organizational goals of knowledge creation
and dissemination are being addressed by individual faculty members as well as by the university
institutionally. This is the essence of the conceptual relationships postulated in Figure 1.
We note though that these embedding mechanisms require attention to be paid to the
contextual factors that limit their potential efficacy. A significant role for university leaders
in Africa that did not surface in the interviews is lobbying the government and other
national bodies to make the case for the kinds of resources and funding needed to
meet the expectations set for the university system.
This is one of the first multi-country studies on the African continent that examines the
role of university leaders in influencing research cultures. It is also one of the first to delve
into how leaders view the challenges of conducting research in their universities. We
argue that it is important to understand how leaders perceive and interpret the chal-
lenges to research performance because their perceptions will ultimately inform their lea-
dership behavior to build and lead strong institutional research cultures.
AFRICA JOURNAL OF MANAGEMENT 187
The findings reported in this paper add to the growing body of literature that tackles
the problem of weak research productivity of African universities. While Puplampu (2015)
proposes an intervention model, our research goes further to address the building of
research cultures. Drawing from the seminal work of Schein (2010) on organization
culture and that of Evans (2007) on research culture, we proposed an expanded definition
of the concept of research culture along with specific embedding mechanisms. Our work
therefore offers both a deeper theoretical consideration of as well as relevant practical
insight into research cultures within universities.
8. Limitations and Future Research
No study is without limitations. Two limitations of this study offer opportunities for future
research. First, our sample consisted of universities in six Anglophone countries which
represents only a small fraction of the continent. Generalizing about a continent as
large and diverse as Africa is difficult. Future research should be extended to other
countries and more universities. Second, the study is also limited by its focus on the
role of university leaders in building research cultures. Future research should examine
how academic staff in African universities perceive research cultures within their respect-
ive disciplines and how they negotiate or have reinvented their commitments to research
given growing demands for increased research productivity.
At the same time, there is research needed to examine the impact of power and status
distance on the strength of research collaborations among academic staff of different ranks,
comparing various instances of collaboration and their results, as well as the ease of achiev-
ing such results and the time taken. Finally, more research is needed on the perceptions of
government leaders and policymakers about their roles, attitudes, and funding decisions for
research. Despite these limitations, we do believe that the findings complement the current
body of literature that has focused on the structural impediments to research productivity
by providing a broader picture of the complex, multi-dimensional challenge of intensifying
the knowledge production of African universities.
Disclosure Statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Funding
The authors want to thank the following funders for their support of the ORCA project: ESRC Impact
Accelerator Account, School of Education, University of Nottingham; Zimbabwe Council for Higher
Education and the Ministry of Higher and Tertiary and Education, Innovation, Science, and Technol-
ogy Development, Zimbabwe; Central University (Ghana) Research Seed Funds; Lagos Business
School, Nigeria and North-West University, South Africa.
Notes on Contributors
Bill Buenar Puplampu is a Professor of Organizational Behavior and currently the Vice Chancellor of
Central University, Ghana. His papers have appeared in various outlets including: Acta Commercii,
Business and Society Review, Canadian Journal of Administrative Sciences, Canadian Journal of Devel-
opment Studies, European Business Review, Journal of the British Academy and Africa Journal of
188 B. B. PUPLAMPU ET AL.
Management. His research interests are in employee motivation, organizational culture and organ-
izational leadership. He is a Fellow of the Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences (FGA).
Stella M. Nkomo is a Professor in the Department of Human Resource Management at the Uni-
versity of Pretoria, South Africa. Her research on race and gender in organizations, leadership,
change management, and management in Africa has been published in such outlets as the
Academy of Management Review, Organization, Journal of Management, Journal of Occupational
and Organizational Psychology, Equality Diversity and Inclusion: an international journal, and the
Academy of Management Learning and Education Journal as well as edited volumes and books.
She is an A-rated South African researcher and founding President of the Africa Academy of
Management.
Yvonne du Plessis is a Professor at the North-West University Business School in South Africa. Her
research relates to organizational behavior in multi-cultural contexts, people and behavioral per-
spectives in project management, and contemporary management challenges in multiple cultural
settings. She has edited a number of books and published widely in scholarly journals both nation-
ally and internationally. Furthermore, she has been a research supervisor for more than 20 Ph.D
graduates and a research mentor for more than 150 Ph.D candidates from Africa, Europe, and
Asia. She is a rated South African researcher and a keen African research scholar.
Jolly Byarugaba Kabagabe is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Human Resource Manage-
ment at the Makerere University Business School, Uganda. She holds a Ph.D from the University
of Witwatersrand, South Africa. Her research interests are in the fields of human resource manage-
ment and organization behavior.
Evelyn Chiyevo Garwe is a Professor and Pro Vice-Chancellor for the Zimbabwe Ezekiel Guti Univer-
sity. Her portfolio of qualifications traverse scientific and management disciplines. She is a keen
researcher and practitioner with expertise and experience in higher education management. Her
research focuses on transformation and quality issues in all aspects of higher education, including
leadership and governance, research, internationalization, doctoral training, gender, and financing.
She is also interested in the ways that inclusive education shapes the narratives regarding various
stakeholders, for example, students, academics, and vulnerable societies.
Juliana M. Namada is an Assistant Professor of Strategic Management at United States Inter-
national University- Africa. She holds a PhD in Strategic Management from the University of
Nairobi. Her research interests are in strategic management and appears in the Africa Journal of
Management, International Journal of Strategy and Automation, Journal of Cooperative Studies, and
the Journal of Organizational Psychology among others. Juliana is a member of the Academy of Man-
agement and Africa Academy of Management. She is the second global representative for Africa in
the Strategic Management division of the Academy of Management and the inaugural fellow of
Junior Faculty Fellowship of Africa Journal of Management.
Kemi Ogunyemi is an Associate Professor and holds a degree in Law from the University of Ibadan,
an LLM in IT and Telecoms Law from University of Strathclyde. Her MBA and PhD Management
degrees are from the Pan-Atlantic University (Nigeria). She currently teaches business ethics, man-
agerial anthropology, self-leadership and sustainability management at Lagos Business School, Pan-
Atlantic University. She is also the director of the Christopher Kolade Centre for Research in Leader-
ship and Ethics as well as the academic director for the School’s Senior Management Program. Her
consulting and research interests include personal ethos, work-life ethic, social responsibility, sus-
tainability, governance, and anti-corruption action.
Juliet Thondhlana is a Professor in the School of Education at the University of Nottingham, UK. Her
research on the internationalization of higher education, African knowledge production and distri-
bution, higher education and employability; entrepreneurship and educational management has
been published in international journals such as Compare: A Journal of Comparative and Inter-
national Education; Management in Education; Journal of Studies in International Education;
Journal of Applied Research in Higher Education; Journal of Further and Higher Education; Journal
of the British Academy; and Educational Review as well as edited books and special issues. She is
AFRICA JOURNAL OF MANAGEMENT 189
lead editor for the ground-breaking handbook Bloomsbury Handbook of the Internationalization of
Higher Education in the Global South.
Dr. Inusah Abdul-Nasiru is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Psychology, University of
Ghana. He is a certified Industrial and Organizational Psychologist with research interest in organ-
izational change, culture and development, emotional intelligence, organizational commitment,
humanitarian work psychology and studies done to facilitate the attainment of sustainable devel-
opment goals (SDGs). His published articles and book chapters appear in outlets that include
Journal of Career Development, Industrial and Organizational Psychology (SIOP), the International
Journal of Forensic Mental Health, and Routledge (Taylor & Francis Group). He is an expert in recruit-
ment using personality profiling, transition support for employees in organizations undergoing
restructuring.
Añulika Agina is a Senior Lecturer in media and communication studies at the Pan-Atlantic Univer-
sity, Lagos with a focus on Nigerian film and cinema-going cultures. Between 2019 and 2022, she
adopted several research methods to work on the Screen Worlds project at SOAS University of
London to investigate Nigerian screen cultures. The outcomes are the production of a documentary,
Behind my Nollywood Screen (2022), and a forthcoming co-edited book titled Contemporary African
Screen Worlds. Her research has been published in the Journal of African Cultural Studies, the Journal
of African Media Studies and Critical African Studies among several other outlets.
Kwesi Amponsah-Tawiah is an Organizational Psychologist and an Associate Professor of Organiz-
ational Development at the University of Ghana Business School, where he serves as the Head,
Department of Organization and Human Resource Management. He holds a PhD in Applied Psy-
chology with specialization in Occupational Psychology from the Institute of Work Health & Organ-
izations (I-WHO), University of Nottingham UK. He has considerable research and consulting
experience in Organizational Development and Change Management, Organizational Design and
Restructuring, Organizational Behavior Management and Occupational Health and Safety Manage-
ment. His research has been published in over sixty international journals including Frontiers in Psy-
chology, Journal of Workplace Behavioral Health, European Journal of Training and Development, and
The Social Science Journal.
Rosemary A. Danesi is an Associate Professor in the Department of Employment Relations & Human
Resource Management at the University of Lagos, Nigeria. Her research on non-standard employ-
ment, bullying in the workplace, and collective bargaining has been published in national and inter-
national journals such as Journal of Economics, Business and Management, Unilag Journal of
Humanities, Nigerian Journal of Labour Law & Industrial Relations, and the US-China Law Review.
She is a Fulbright Fellow and currently the MBA Coordinator at the University of Lagos, Nigeria.
Justice Gameli Djokoto is a Professor in the Department of Agribusiness at the Central University,
Ghana. His research on agribusiness, agricultural technology, efficiency and productivity, as well as
foreign direct divestment has been published in such outlets as Agribusiness: an international
journal, Technology in Society, Studies in Agricultural Economics, Agricultural Finance Review,
Agrekon, F1000Research, SAGE Open and Cogent Food & Agriculture as well as edited volumes and
books. He is founding President of Chartered Institute of Agriculture, Ghana.
Denise Diana Duncan is a lecturer in the Department of Communications and Media Studies, at the
Central University, Ghana. She holds a Ph.D in Communication Science from the University of South
Africa. She has research interests in all disciplines of communications management such as organ-
izational communications, strategic integrated communication, and change communication. She
developed a model for her doctoral thesis as she explored the practice of strategic integrated com-
munication in selected banks in Ghana. Her article about establishing the relevance of cooperative
education in Ghana can be found in the International Journal of Work Integrated Learning.
Joseph Lekunze has a Ph.D in Agricultural Economics and Management and a Certificate in Project
Management. He is currently a Research Professor at the North West University Business School in
South Africa. His research focus area is Agricultural Economics and Business Management. His pub-
lished research appears in several journals including the South African Journal of Agribusiness and
190 B. B. PUPLAMPU ET AL.
Rural Development, The Journal for Trans disciplinary Research in Southern Africa and in many confer-
ence papers.
Simon McGrath is a Professor and holds the UNESCO Chair in International Education and Devel-
opment at the School of Education, University of Nottingham and a visiting professor at Nelson
Mandela University. He is a Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences (UK) and has published
extensively in the fields of international and comparative education, vocational education and train-
ing, and development studies.
Joyce Ndegwa is an Assistant Professor in Strategic Management at United States International
University, Chandaria School of Business, Kenya. She holds a PhD and Masters in Business
Administration (Strategic Management). Her areas of research interest include strategic manage-
ment, change management, knowledge management, organizational development and passio-
nate about student mentorship. Some of her research output has been published in
International Journal of Research in Business and Social Science and DBA-Africa Management
Review.
Nancy Ngowa is a Senior Lecturer and a Chair of the Department of Languages, Linguistics, and Lit-
erature at Pwani University in Kenya. Her research in phonology, morphology, and syntax of Bantu
languages has been published as articles and book chapters in journals such as Studia Orientalia
Electronica (StOrE), Language Science Press, and Arusha Working Papers in Africa Linguistics, among
others. Dr. Ngowa also organized an International conference at Pwani University bringing language
scholars from different parts of the world. She is currently leading the endangered language docu-
mentation project at Pwani University.
Michael Ofori Ntow is a Lecturer in the Department of Human Resource Management at Central
University, Ghana and a PhD student at the Department of Public Administration and Public
Policy, Mississippi State University, U.S.A. His research interests and publications focus on organiz-
ational behavior, human resource management and occupational health and safety management.
He is a member of Africa Academy of Management, Academy of Management, and an Associate
Member of Institute of Chartered Economists, Ghana.
Emily Ayieta Ondondo PhD, studied Linguistics at the University of Newcastle, New South Wales,
Australia. She is Senior Lecturer of Linguistics at Jaramogi Oginga Odinga University of Science
and Technology (JOOUST), Kenya. She has published in a number of journals among them: Inter-
national Journal of English Language and Linguistics Research, US-China Foreign Language, Theory
and Practice in Language Studies, Applied Linguistics Research Journal, Journal of Language & Linguis-
tic Studies, Communication and Linguistics Studies, and the International Journal of Applied Linguistics
and Translation. Her research interests are in Bantu and African Linguistics documentation and
description.
Ravinder Rena is a profound academician and distinguished scholar in economics with over 30
years of teaching and research experience. He is a Professor of Economics at the NWU Business
School, North-West University, South Africa. He serves as the Honorary Country Director – South
Africa for the International Internship University (IIU). He also serves as an Adjunct Professor of Econ-
omics at Monarch Business School, Monarch University, Switzerland. He has published widely in the
area of development economics, especially on African issues. He published over 140 articles in
reputed journals across the globe. He is the founding Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal
of Education, Economics and Development.
Maxwell Sandada is an Associate Professor of Business at the University of Zimbabwe Business
School and a Deputy Dean of Business Management Sciences and Economics Faculty. His research
revolves around general and strategic management, strategic marketing, organizational design &
development as well as purchasing and supply chain management. His work has been published
in various international journals which include South East European Journal of Economics and
Business, Africa Insight, Journal of Economics, AfricaGrowth Agenda, Acta Universitatis Danubius, Paki-
stan Journal of Applied Economics. He supervises MBA and PhD students and is responsible for assist-
ing Post Graduate Faculty students to develop research concepts and proposals.
AFRICA JOURNAL OF MANAGEMENT 191
ORCID iDs
Stella Nkomo https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3397-631X
Yvonne du Plessis https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6900-1664
Evelyn Chiyevo Garwe http://orcid.org/0000-0002-6111-8622
Juliet Thondhlana http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4065-5103
Inusah Abdul-Nasiru http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4407-7953
Añulika Agina https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4921-7879
Justice Gameli Djokoto https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2159-2944
Simon McGrath http://orcid.org/0000-0003-2312-5378
Ravinder Rena http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4156-8693
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