Call for Book Chapters: Responsible Management: African Perspectives to Ethical Work, Sustainability, and Principled Entrepreneurship

Editors: Kemi Ogunyemi, Omowumi Ogunyemi and Amaka Anozie

kogunyemi@lbs.edu.ngoogunyemi@pau.edu.nganoziejava@gmail.com

Publisher: yet to be determined

Short blurb: Africa is one of the world’s oldest economies, yet little is known about the wisdom which guided responsible management traditionally. Most work in the field employs Western perspectives. This book brings African voices to complement current global management knowledge and practice.

Full book description: While the term ‘responsible management’ has been considered difficult to define in a universally accepted manner (1), it is generally agreed that, “in business, responsible management is the commitment that management and leaders consider the ethical and moral significance of their everyday decisions” (2). We believe that African perspectives have much to offer in this regard.

Africa is a huge continent that is home to a great proportion of the world’s traditions; there is much to learn from the wisdom behind responsible management according to those traditions. We refer to a plethora of insights as yet untapped fully, especially for the field of management and, by extension, for responsible management. Much of the extant work on responsible management has been carried out from a Western perspective. Hence, we believe that it is now opportune to contribute a less known perspective to this body of work – by providing an outlet for voices from the multicultural nations of Africa. For example, the communitarian approach to life and the inspirational paradigms embedded in proverbs and adages, song and poetry, and folklore are among the many unique conceptual lenses that African peoples can contribute to enriching global perspectives on managing entities responsibly, be they public or private sector enterprise.  The continent has reservoirs of much-needed depth of understanding to offer for the purpose of enhancing responsible management – indigenous wisdom that motivates ethical practices at work, promotes sustainability and supports principled entrepreneurship – and thus could bring a lot of value to contemporary business practice around the world.

To achieve our aim, we ask you to collaborate with us from all over the continent by contributing theoretical perspectives and practical implications of indigenous approaches to managing responsibly, especially with regard to integrating ethical practices into businesses and assuring sustainability through ethical profitability.

Proposed contents: (please send all proposals – 300 words – to kogunyemi@lbs.edu.ng by April 29, 2021):

Chapter 1 will contain an introduction to alternative ways of managing responsibly and will touch on concepts such as African humanism, communitarianism and communalism, family-orientation, morality, justice and human rights, etc. This first chapter will also introduce the sub-regions of Africa and give a general overview of the variety of responsible business traditions from a continent that houses over fifty (50) sovereign nations clustered in five subregions. In the following chapters, following a unifying structure, contributing authors are expected to present a variety of indigenous theories that have been applied from antiquity to achieve responsible management across different African countries and ethnic families.

Thus, every other chapter should include:

· A title: Examples could be “Responsible business traditions among the Maasai – Kenya and Tanzania”; “Applying the wisdom of the Khoisan to business and management – Southern Africa”; “Mediterranean trade in Alexandria – Egypt”; “Akan management styles and gold trade in the Sahel – Ghana, Mali and Kanem Bornu”; “Managing a business responsibly in the Axumite kingdom – Ethiopia and Eritrea”, etc.

·       Introduction and context setting (historically, geographically and culturally)

·       The meaning of responsibility and its incorporation into the traditional management approaches

·       Related indigenous concepts about managing people humanistically and managing resources ethically

·       Related Western or Eastern concepts

·       A case study or two

·       Discussion of the case study(ies) to highlight ethical practices at work, an orientation towards sustainability and or the traits of principled entrepreneurship

·       Historical interactions with colonialism and globalisation

·       Implications for the future of management theory for Africa and beyond

·       References, a 250-word summary of the chapter and 5 keywords

Please submit a 300-word proposal to kogunyemi@lbs.edu.ng(the expected full chapter length is 6000 words from the introduction to the references), accompanied by a 200-word bio. Deadline: April 29, 2021.

Timeline and key dates:

Deadline for chapter proposals: April 29, 2021

Proposal acceptances: May 2, 2021

Full chapter submissions: August 15, 2021

Peer review process (each contributor to review two chapter drafts)August 21 to October 1, 2021

Action on reviewers’ comments and final chapter submissions: October 28, 2021

Final editorial review and final author revisions if any: November 28, 2021

Full chapter acceptances: December 4, 2021

Manuscript to publishers: December 7, 2021

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