ABSTRACT
Management in Africa is under researched by scholars both within and outside of the continent. As a result, nowhere is management research-practice gap so wide than in Africa. This paper aims to assess the management research practices and challenges in selected Ethiopian higher education institutions (HEIs) and contributes to the improvement of management research practice in general. The study employed qualitative approach and a descriptive case study designed to assess management research practices in 7 selected public and private higher institutions in Addis Ababa. The study result indicated that the status of management research and publication in these institutions is limited and lack focus. There is only once a year call for papers and publishing of proceedings. The themes were selected by research coordinators or committees often without consultation with staffs and other stakeholders. There are lacks of genuine commitment from the institutions; rather they face saving activities made to meet the minimum standards for the renewal of their licenses. The major challenges were shortage of finance, staff competency deficiencies and lack of commitment, absence of research culture, lack of incentives and encouragements, and lack of involvement and engagement of key stakeholders in the research process. Hence, to improve their visibility, their staff and education quality HEIs are recommended to establish their research program through involvement of internal and external stakeholders in the research process from identification of research areas to the use of the results, develop research competency of their staff, provide incentives, and promote research culture.
Key words: Management research, research program, research stakeholders’ involvement, challenges, business schools, higher education institutions.
Business schools should actively engage in research as part of their business education programs. This responsibility emanates from the nature of management itself, the business schools objectives and the multiple
stakeholders they have to serve, and the national contexts among others. Business school’s primary duty is to serve its stakeholders and the industries by providing state of the art knowledge in business areas within the national context.
Management as a discipline is both science and art (Koontz and Weihrich, 2007). It has a body of knowledge with theories and empirical literature that supports them (Gill and Johnson, 2002). This body of knowledge is often criticised as mainly developed based on the western contexts (Hofstede, 1993; Tsui, 2006; Tsang, 2008; Akpor-Robaro, 2018; Zoogah and Nkomo, 2013; Zoogah et al., 2015) which may not effectively explain the contexts of other parts of the world. As an art, it is a practice that involves evidence based problem solving and decision making (Gill and Johnson, 2002; Meyer, 2006). The available body of knowledge based on researches in the west may not be applied as it is, without some research to critically adapt it to the reality or context of African countries (Hofstede, 1993; Tsui, 2006; Tsang, 2008; Akpor-Robaro, 2018; Zoogah and Nkomo, 2013; Zoogah et al., 2015). In this regard, Bennett (1983) noted that management research builds on practice, draws from it, and the ultimate criterion of its effectiveness is in the practical application of research results.
Business schools’ responsibility for research also emanates from their obligation to their multiple stakeholders – the students, the business practitioners, and the academics (Trieschmann et al., 2000). To satisfy these stakeholders, business schools have as their objectives producing capable and competent managers by providing high quality education, and carrying out research to contribute to knowledge, to critically adapt the management theories, and contribute to the improvement of management practices of the country (Trieschmann et al., 2000; Pfeffer and Fong, 2002; Cassell and Lee, 2011). Achieving these objectives requires designing relevant curriculum based on the situation of the changing business environment, exploiting the existing research and carrying out application oriented research and using them in the education process, and linking education to practice. They should produce research that guides practitioners and contributes to the improvement of management practice, and develop graduates who are capable of carrying out research and solve problems based on evidences (Pfeffer and Fong, 2002; Mintzberg, 2004; Gill and Johnson, 2002).
Nevertheless, in spite of business education becoming big business and MBA becoming a popular degree, business schools have been criticised for achieving neither of these objectives (Mintzberg, 2004). They are criticised for selling MBA certificates, producing graduates with little or no capacity to improve performance, providing education that has little effect on their career success and producing research that has little impact on managerial practices (Pfeffer and Fong, 2002; Mintzberg, 2004; George, 2015). These are critics of the business schools in the west which exploit the research results developed in their own context and which have academic staffs highly skilled in both teaching and research, and have adequate capacity and resources to exploit the existing research and explore knowledge to develop new theories.
In Africa, the criticism of these business schools is much more in that they are not designing and adapting their curriculum to the changing national, regional, and global business landscape. They are copying and using theories and studies developed in the west without carrying out research to critically adapt them (Akpor-Robaro, 2018), use staffs who lack research skills, commitment and motivation for research (Zoogah et al., 2015).
Furthermore, management in Africa is under researched by both researchers from outside in the west and elsewhere, and the academics residing in the business schools (George, 2015; Zoogah and Nkomo, 2012; Nkomo et al., 2015). For instance, recent review of management or business research shows that only 2% of the management research on management in Africa comes from researchers in Africa (DeGhetto et al., 2016).
Therefore, owing to the dearth of research on Africa (Nkomo et al., 2015), and recent rise of Africa, there is a growing interest and call for management research on Africa (George, 2015). Above all, the call for research on management for the academics and business schools emanates from the need to contributing to management practice improvement. In this regard, a recent article by DeGhetto et al. (2016) calls for management research in Africa to contribute to and realize Africa’s vision of 2063. They emphasised that Agenda 2063 needs to use relevant management theories, tools and techniques (DeGhetto et al., 2016) and these have to be developed and or adapted through research. Even within Africa, due to the differences in national contexts of research like resources, institutions, research culture, etc. the status of management research differs. For instance, in South Africa there is an active management research as compared to other African countries (Zoogah et al., 2015).
However, to the contrary of this indispensable role, our academic institutions, in as much as the knowledge of the researchers is concerned, did not seem to be up to their role. This has direct impact on their teaching, training and consultancy services quality, on the quality of their academic staff, their capacity development and their visibility or reputation as learning institution. Hence, the researchers have undertaken this study to assess the management research practices of selected academic institutions, identify their status, and challenges hampering their research endeavour. The findings of this study will contribute to the improvement of the research practices of business schools by indicating how research programs will be established and managed.
Management education and practice gap
Management as a discipline has both a body of knowledge and practice (Bartunek, 2007; Boyer, 1990; Van de Ven, 2007). The body of knowledge represents the management theories and empirical studies to test these theories, both of which are outputs of management research. Management is also a practice that aims to improve organizational effectiveness (Dia, 1996; Zoogah and Nkomo, 2012). This will also lead us to unresolved debate of rigour versus relevance debate of management research (Maclean et al., 2002; Fincham and Clark, 2009). According to Bennett (1983), management research builds on practice, draws from it, and the ultimate criterion of its effectiveness is in the practical application of research results. This also implies the need for network and relationship between academics and practitioners to improve the management practice and organizational effectiveness.
Nevertheless, the first major challenge of management research is that there is lack of linkages between these domains of management or there is research and practice gap (Van de Ven, 2007; George, 2015). Due to this, different scholars criticise the business schools research for having little contribution to the management practice (Pfeffer and Fong, 2002; Van de Ven, 2007). In this era of impact factor, the academics in the business schools are criticised for being detached from the reality of management practice and carrying out research for the sake of academics with leap service to implication for practice (Doh, 2010). This has led to the critics of the business schools not only for their self-fulfilling prophesy of rigour at the expense of practice on research but also on the effectiveness of MBA education and lack of significant linkage between education and practice, and for producing graduates who lack critical thinking, reflection, and problem solving skills to improve practice (Pfeffer and Fong, 2002; Mintzberg, 2004; Cassell and Lee, 2011).
In line with the above line of argument, George (2015) noted that as an applied field, the emphasis on theory with disregard to the context of management practice presents a challenge for progress both as a scholarly domain and for credibility in what we teach and how we consult, or how we effect positive social change. Furthermore, the management theories and related empirical researches are mainly based on western culture and business contexts. If not critically adapted through application research, they may not guide the practice of the developing countries management (Hofstede, 1993; Akpor-Robaro, 2018). Besides application research, context based theory development and testing to guide context specific problem solving is also now accepted as additional approach of advancing management as a field of study (White, 2002; Leung, 2009; Prichard et al., 2007). Therefore, to be effective as a field of study, management and management research should be based on practice and takes into account the context within which the practice of management happens (George, 2015; Tsui, 2013; Akpor-Robaro, 2018). Management research should serve the academics and practice, the academicians, the practitioners, the students, the industry and the society. Indeed it should take the needs of society and national agendas into account (Cassell and Lee, 2011; George, 2015; Thomas and Wilson, 2010).
As a remedy for this, research, education, and practice gap; the collaboration of the academics with the practitioners in the research process starting from identification of research agenda to the use of the result is recommended by a number of researches (George, 2015). This collaboration starts with the identification of research agendas that benefit the society, continues in conducting the research, and disseminating and using its results (Thorpe et al., 2011). Therefore, for the research to have impact, it should start with societal level impacts and works to realizing it with the engagement of stakeholders (Van de Ven, 2007). That is according to Aguinis et al. (2014), management research should be an engaged scholarship that engages all its relevant stakeholders.
Challenges of management research in Africa
Research in management is insignificant in developing countries’ higher education institutions (HEIs) due to various constraints and problems. Hummadi (1989) notes shortage of resources, shortage of trained and experienced researchers, lack of commitment of the executives, absence of well-established and supporting organizational structure, and absence of visiting exchange program between universities as the major challenges.
Various reviews of literature on management in Africa indicated that there is little published management research in Africa (Nkomo et al., 2015; George, 2015; Mol and Stadler, 2017). This is an indication of lack of focus or interest into management research from management scholars from outside of Africa on the one hand and lack of visible management research in Africa by local management scholars and practitioners (Kan et al., 2015; George, 2015; Walsh, 2015). More specifically during the last 2-3 decades, despite the expansion of the management scholarship to the rest of developing world like Asia and Latin America, there is lack of focus on Africa from management scholarship in the west (Jackson, 2002, 2004; Zoogah et al., 2015). The reasons for this in strategic management research according to Kan et al. (2015), are lack of funds for management research to universities in the west and the challenges of getting access to data on Africa. They are of the opinion that leading scholars in the west lack adequate knowledge of African context and lack of secondary data, access to primary data, and logistics problems have made them little interested into management research in Africa.
Nevertheless, with the last decade, economic development in Africa and growing interest of multinationals foreign direct investment, the image of Africa is changing from the Dark Continent to one of opportunity (Walsh, 2015). Along with this shift, there is a growing interest and a manifestation of which is an increasing call for research on management in Africa (Kan et al., 2015; George, 2015; Zoogah, 2008, Walsh, 2015; Mol and Stadler, 2017). Despite of these repeated calls, the management scholarship about Africa remains limited. As an evidence for this, Zoogah and Nkomo (2013)’s review of journals published on African management identified that there are only four journals related to management in Africa in the web of science, all of which are from South Africa.
Similarly, other reviews of literature on business and management research on Africa indicated that there are variations in data availability and difficulty of collecting data among the continent, and the focus of research within Africa itself varies based on the level of GDP of the countries. They have identified that more than 50% of the research is from South Africa followed by Kenya, Ghana, and Nigeria with share of about 10% each (George et al., 2016; Kolk and Rivera-Santos, 2018). These indicate that the majority of African states are out of campus of high quality local and foreign researchers. Even in this limited focus of research on few countries, the share of articles published by scholars based in Africa is negligible. Some study puts the share of scholars from within Africa to approximately 2% of the authors (Acquaah et al., 2013).
Despite of the expanding economy in Africa, its businesses effectiveness is handicapped by lack of management theories and practices that guide managers in their contexts (Akpor-Robaro, 2018). In the absence of research that critically adapts management theories to the context of Africa, and that develops new theory that helps practitioners make their organization effective, the attempt to follow management theories of the west does not help the practitioners solve managerial problems and make their business effective (Nkomo et al., 2015; Akpor-Robaro, 2018).
Furthermore, what complicates the research practice link in Africa is the diversity between regions in the context and even within countries of Africa, which implies that the context for theory adaptation and theory development is diverse to generalise with limited researches (George, 2015, Nokomo et al., 2015). The aforementioned made the task of management scholarship and linkages with practice much more complex even when compared to other parts of developing world (George, 2015). Therefore, management research scholars recommend testing the applicability of theories developed in the west to identify what also holds in Africa, adding to the empirical literature on this western theories by adding the contextual boundary conditions that need to be considered to use them in African context, and thirdly developing African own management theory based on African culture and context that helps managers solve their business problems and make them effective (George, 2015; Akpor-Robaro, 2018; Cheng, 1994). As a result, research on Africa is also hoped to inform on the existing theories and expand the frontier of management scholarship to what has not been known about different areas of management and the effect of unique context of Africa on business’ effectiveness. For instance, some writers note that African businesses are operating in a constraining environment where formal and informal sector operates side by side, void of institutions, infrastructure, conflict, weak government, etc. They are of the opinion that research in Africa will uncover and contribute new things on entrepreneurship, internal business, strategic management, governance, private sector development, etc. There is now a growing call for researchers from within and outside of the continent in all the three options of context free, contextualisation, and context based approaches to the development of management knowledge on and in Africa (George, 2015; Kiggundu and Lamont, 2015; Walsh, 2015; Zoogah, 2008; Zoogah and Nkomo, 2013; Zoogah et al., 2015).
Much more recently, there are researches and calls for management research for sustainability of Africa’s development (Honig and Acquaah, 2016; Bagire and Namada, 2015). More specifically, there is a call for research that has impact on the practice, focused on the societal and national agenda, and even supporting Africa’s vision 2063 cascaded to each nation context, supporting the implementation process with relevant management theories, models, and tools (DeGhetto et al., 2016; Zoogah et al., 2015; Ugwuegbu, 2001). This agenda’s implementation provides research opportunities for country specific research and cross country comparative study in management which can contribute to the implementation of the agenda and to the body of management knowledge (Zoogah et al., 2015).
Furthermore, to be effective in contributing to the organizational effectiveness, societal and national development, and possibly to the advancement of management scholarship; management research should be a process that engages different stakeholders; the practitioners, the students, policy makers, not for profit institutions, etc. (Bennette, 1983; Thomas and Wilson, 2010). The practitioners should be involved in shaping research agenda, partner in the research process, and the results of research should be disseminated to the users (Rousseau, 2006; Tranfield et al., 2003; Van de Ven, 2002; Thomas and Wilson, 2010). Researchers within different HEIs should also collaborate with in the continent and with their counterparts in the west and elsewhere to advance the management scholarship in Africa and contribute to sustaining development in Africa (DeGhetto et al., 2016; Zoogah et al., 2015).
Challenges of management research in Ethiopia
Business schools, management education and research in Ethiopia do exhibit most of the challenges of management research and education discussed. According to the education policy (MOE, 1984), research is one of the objectives of HEIs, business schools included. The policy clearly stipulates that the education programs should be research based to produce competent graduates with problem solving abilities. Research, education, and training programs of these HEIs should also be based on the development agendas of the country.
Nevertheless, the academics are not yet to this national responsibility. There is little or no organized research programs and our HEI’s are weak in terms of research outputs (Saint, 2004). There is no linkage between education and practices, as the result of these graduates are good at theory, but lacks skills to practice and solve problems (Yizengaw, 2003). Teaching is not based on research and such type of teaching without research is sterile (Kahasay, 2012). Kahasay also identified the sources of challenges as internal and external. The internal sources of challenges are lack of research skills, commitment and motivation of academic staff, lack of resources, and engaging academic culture. Externally, the societal culture that honour learning just for getting degree, not the intellectual growth and development of problem solving skills is also affecting the level of commitment from the students’ side.
Similarly, the other major problems identified for these institutions underperformance in research are:
i. Lack of research skill, lack or inadequate incentives to encourage the instructors to do research, and heavy teaching load that encroaches in the 25% of the time allocated for research (Adane, 2000; Siyum, 1998; HERQA, 2009).
ii. Failure to evolve relevant stakeholders in identification of research themes and all the other phases of the research process (DEFID, 2007).
iii. Absence of research culture and suitable organizational environment and climate (Adane, 2000).
iv. Absence of enough journals to publish research outputs and the financial difficulty to start and sustain their own difficulty, and inadequate number of research symposia and workshops to publish research results (HERQA, 2009).
v. Lack of communication with the stakeholders makes most of the little results available to remain as shelf wares (DEFID, 2007; HERQA, 2009). Furthermore, research reports and scientific publications are often taken as ultimate targets (DEFID, 2007).
The aforementioned problems indicate the magnitude and systemic nature of the research problems in our HEI’s. They are related to the organization culture, climate and environment, the linkage and relationship with the stakeholders, the communication and use of the results. Hence, kick-starting the research activity of these institutions may require 360-degree overhauling and considering system wide solution.
The higher education strategy or GTP-2 also recognises some of the underlying factors (MOE, 2015). Low salary and benefits has forced the academic staff to do moonlighting to get additional income, than do research and other community service activities. The job description for academic staff communicates the expectation that they spend 25% of their time in research activities. The academics are expected to spend 25% of their time on research and also link education with research (Melese, 2010). Nevertheless, in most cases, they will not spend their time on research and did not facilitate and support students to research. The research budget is very small or insignificant. HEIs have nominally set research as one of their goal but they don’t have well established programs with monitoring and evaluation arrangements for follow-up, and mechanisms for disseminating whatever findings to users, and mechanisms of ensuring the effectiveness of the research results (MOE, 2015).
Nevertheless, during the recent years, there is an increase in the number of research outputs, but their alignment with the societal and national development needs is not well established. Their quality is low and most of them do not meet the standard to be published in international journals. The strategy documents having noted all of the above challenges; it also notes that even if there is gradual increase in the number of internationally published journal articles, Ethiopia is yet behind African countries like, Nigeria, Kenya, and Ghana (MOE, 2015).
This research employed qualitative descriptive case study of 7 HEIs in Addis Ababa. The data was obtained from 20 research directors and selected academic staffs using structured interview. Purposive sampling was used to select participants. The participant academic institutions were Addis Ababa Commercial College, Royal University College, Ethiopian Management Institute, Ethiopian Civil Service College, Unity University College, City University College, and Saint Mary University College. The semi-structured interview questions posed to the informants were: (1) What is the current practice of management research in your university? (2) Is there an established research program? (3) How involved are stakeholders in your research process? (4) How linked is your research with teaching learning programs of your institutions? (5) How do you disseminate the research outputs? Probing questions were asked as needed to elicit complete responses.
Structurally, they all have work unit that coordinates research and recognise research as one of their objectives and activity. On the involvement of stakeholders, the research directors and academics are of unanimous opinion that neither internal nor external stakeholders were engaged in the research process. There are no established research programs in any one of these institutions. The research themes are ad hocly identified on a yearly basis, be research directors or committees. Furthermore, the thematic areas in most of these institutions are multidisciplinary and are not focussed on management except for Addis Ababa Commercial School, Ethiopian Management Institute, and St. Mary University. However, there is no practice of using the few results for teaching and learning process and no further measures were taken so far to communicate the result to different stakeholders for their use in improving management practices.
On the dissemination of research results, only St. Merry University and Addis Ababa Commercial School have journals dedicated to business and management. Nevertheless, nothing is known about the use of results relating to external stakeholders. They all allocate budget for the once a year multidisciplinary research workshop; however, the amount paid to the researchers is very small (between 100-200 USD) and does not even cover the research costs of the researchers. Most of the academic staffs blame this insignificant research budget as the major discouraging factor.
The aforementioned discussion about the status of research indicated that there is little or no management research in these institutions. The positive aspiration to be a centre of excellence in problem solving and related researches, mentioned in the strategic plan documents, and the existence of annual research conferences in almost all of these organizations. Furthermore, the existence of journals and bulletins can also be cited as a positive step towards creating a research culture. However, some of our informants have noted that even this once a year call for paper, annual conferences and their proceedings, and the organization of research and quality assurance units were not signs of these institutions commitment to research, rather they were a face saving activity to meet a precondition for the renewal of their accreditation or licences by HERQA; hence, one can say there are no significant achievements so far. Management research did not yet have enough attention of the HEIs and much more, effort has to be spent to create conducive environment, encourage the staff and make relevant research that directly contributes to their teaching learning process, improves practices and possibly contributes to advancement of knowledge.
Furthermore, status of research in general and the management research in these HEI’s indicates the existence of serious handicapping factors that hindered the practicality of research in these institutions. The key informants have unanimity on these factors and the major factors according to them are:
i. Shortage of budget or fund for research and honorarium.
ii. Lack or inadequate incentives, the honorariums did not even cover the researcher’s expenses.
iii. Where there is a fund from donors, the donors determine the research area.
iv. The staff lacks research experiences and competencies.
v. The staffs lack commitment and interest. They rather prefer to use their time on some other personal matters.
vi. Absence of research culture.
vii. Lack of strong support and encouragement.
The existence of these factors indicate that management research is facing the same challenges that researches in developing countries and Ethiopian HEI’s are facing the problems (Adane, 2000; Siyum, 1998; HERQA, 2009; MOE, 2015). Furthermore, these problems imply the systemic nature of research challenges. They are related to finance, the staff competence and interest or commitment, organization culture, commitment and support of leadership or management, the organizational structure, policies and regulations, and rewards systems. It also relates to the lack of involvement of stakeholders in the research process, starting from the identification of research areas and themes, to the communication of research results to the users.
For the question raised regarding the remedial actions, the respondents have noted that if:
i. Adequate budget or fund is available for research, management is committed to research and encourages research, sufficient and attractive incentive is provided.
ii. Adequate opportunities for publishing research reports, the staffs do recognise the importance of research and can engage in research.
Besides these, some of the informants have noted that, in the near future the publish or perish principle should take effect. They noted that, the new academic staff career development and employment rule requires that an instructor who does not undertake research and publish articles will not get promotion and if he/she did not make change in title in 4 years, he/she will be fired. This indicates that research might become an obligation for someone who wants to have an academic career and this may force the instructors to engage in research.
However, to succeed in research our HEI’s may need more than these. It may need the consideration of remedial actions from all the system elements, that is, finance, staff, culture, leadership, policies and procedures, communication and relationship with stakeholders. For instance, regarding the use of research results and involvement of relevant stakeholders throughout the research process, DEFID (2007), noted that involvement of relevant actors in the whole research process would make it targeted and problem oriented and recommended the adoption of the experience of agriculture sector in other sectors. According to this, business schools should involve stakeholders like that of Ministry of Education, Ministry of Industry (MOI), Ministry of Trade (MOT), and other relevant departments, and private sector organizations in the identification of demand for research, in the research process and make significant effort to communicate the results to the users so that they can solve their problems and improve their management practices.
The status of management research is so weak and is limited to once a year calls for paper, conference and publishing of the proceedings. Hence, these institutions are far from fulfilling their expected role of research as stipulated in the education and training policy.
The major challenges indicated as the cause for this status and their underperformance were shortage of finance, staff skills and competency deficiencies and lack of commitment, absence of research culture, lack of incentives and encouragements. This indicates that the basic conditions for the establishment of research programs and meet what is expected of these institutions is not yet there. Furthermore, the commitment of these institutions’ leadership to implement the education and training policy provisions in this regard is lacking.
Besides these, the very basic factor for the success in research, the involvement of relevant actors such as relevant ministries and agencies, employers’ associations, chamber of commerce, major employers, etc. is lacking. This has made the little research outputs produced by students and teachers on management remain as shelf ware. It seems that the organization of one day workshop in a year and production of its proceedings by itself is an end. It implies the existence of a lot of confusion on what should be researched and how, what to do with the results, how to use research findings in their programs, whether research is of any use to management practice improvement and so on.
Hence, to establish and sustain management research programs, the following points are recommended. The business schools and management development institutions should establish their own research coordination unit or structural mechanisms. They should recognise the importance of management research to the visibility of their school, its staff quality of education and above all to the national development and competitiveness, and demonstrate their commitment to research. They should encourage research; cultivate the research culture by becoming a role model. In this regard, a lesson can be learned from the President of St. Mary College. Above all they should involve key actors in the research process from the identification of research ideas for research program to the use of results. The competence of the staff should be built through training and coaching or mentoring program whereby each staff member gets an opportunity to internalise the basic research skills. Adequate incentives and time should be given for each staff to produce at least one research result every year.
Furthermore, research forums and conferences should be held in a more frequent manner, for example, once every quarter as feasible, and ample opportunities for publishing research findings not only in proceedings form but also in journals, e-journals and websites should be created. The results of their research should be communicated to their users in a way that the users can understand and use. They should demonstrate their competence and credibility in the eye of their stakeholders and raise funds by working towards the prime problems of their stakeholders, agenda 2063, and sustainable development goals.
The MOE and HERQA should exert more efforts to ensure that research is carried out in each and every discipline as per the requirement of the education and training policy, and the linkage among teaching, research and consultancy or community outreach is well established. They should create a mechanism or facilitate the establishment of linkages among HEI’s among themselves to create synergy and disseminate and make use of the little findings, and create a condition for the establishment of linkages between stakeholders and HEI’s on the research process.
The relevant stakeholders of management research from all sector organizations, should work with the business schools on identification of research areas and throughout the research process. They should provide funds and solicit resources for these management research programs, and make use of the research results and provide feedback to HEI’s business schools.
Finally, future researchers on the area are recommended to consider in depth research into the linkage of management research to courses, consultancy and staff development requirements of the business schools, establishment of engagement of all stakeholders in the research process, and linkage of research programs to sustainable development goals and agenda 2063 of the continent.
The authors have not declared any conflict of interests.
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