Beyond a white business curriculum

​LJMU's efforts to look beyond a 'white' business curriculum have been backed with funding from a leading academic body.

A predominantly white curriculum continues to be the norm in business and management schools in Europe with students largely oblivious of home-grown African or Asian approaches to economic development, the division of labour and finance.

"It's important that students can develop global perspectives on business management practices and build a cross-cultural capability to enable them to work professionally in a multicultural environment," explains Dr Temidayo Akenroye, a senior lecturer at Liverpool Business School.

Temidayo and Professor Claire Hannibal are keen to mainstream African indigenous management theories and, to do so, have won funding to train early career researchers from the Society for the Advancement of Management Studies, which runs the well-known Journal of Management Studies. 

"Evidence from developing countries shows that externally driven development models are ineffective," he says.

"Indeed, the imposition of non-African approaches has often been damaging to the innovative capabilities of young people, particularly in their ability to look inward and develop home-grown solutions that are compatible with Africa's cultural, social and economic realities.

"We need greater understanding of what management might mean in the African context; but there is greater value too in comparing and contrasting cross-country management theories. This could equally enrich course content and teaching assessment in non-African universities." 

The Early Career Researcher Workshop 'Mainstreaming African indigenous management theories and practices into publications in international journals' will run in 2021.