Study Report 1


 

 
 
STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT IN AFRICAN’S POST COLONIAL ERA.
 
 
Report over related literature
 
 
 
Author:
 
 
Alexander Nwobi Opaluwa
 
Student N. 220083076
  
 
 
Africa-
(http://thefreedictionary.com/)
Strategic management -
 
I.                   Introduction
After years of colonial rule and economic reform in most part of Africa, Africa is now in the process of coming in to the spotlight of world economies. The introduction of market economy based rules, reforms, regulations and policies in some African countries like Nigeria led to needs for strategic management policies in its economy. Important economical indicators like annual GDP (gross domestic product) growth, GDP per capita, urban and rural disposable income, PPP (purchasing power parity) per capita, FDI (foreign direct investments) inflow in some part of Africa like Nigeria is growing. For the past couple of years Africa (Nigeria) has been emerging as a top destination for businesses.
After years of instability, the fight for independence and the changing from the military rule to civilian rule in most part of Africa. Africa is now on the blink of a huge Economic transformation. Steady migration and emigration in to the continent bring the need for government to embark huge strategic management polices due to its huge economic potential.
Africa being a resourceful Continent of raw material and human resource, have now seen more companies from Asia growing economies’ such as China and India and around the world, who now do business in the continent which was once dominated by state own companies. Being a huge producer or raw materials, Africa have experience a huge bombardment of ideals in its strategic management policies, from government influence to now private dominated and international influence
This paper tries to make us understand the strategic management polices and business norms in Africa using Nigeria as research point. Topics in this paper represent major norms and the business environment in Africa.
 
II.                STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT GOVERNANCE IN AFRICA.
Human resource management as a part of strategic management in national development and governance in Africa countries in particular is not lacking (Becker and Gerhart 1996; Greene 1978) this brings into account fruitful perspective into the mix. As part of the main theme, we look at some countries in Africa, Mauritius, Tanzania, morocco, Swaziland, and Namibia. This suggest that government should take staff management more seriously because it is an important factor in their effectiveness and correspondingly contributes to their overall economic and national development growth.
We try to understand because of the government types in these countries would be appropriate. Additionally, a reasonable number of cases might allow for generalizations. (Przeworski and Teune 1982) the sample of this countries also makes for an interesting variety, lower and middle income, both English (Anglophone) and French speaking(Francophone) in different regions of Africa, and morocco on the edge of the Arab world.
Important points have being made, such as deliberately cutting the public workforce could serve as a strategy for achieving staffing reforms. Downsizing provides comparative results of staffing reform in developing as well as industrialized countries. Findings show that reforms have been unsuccessful. Whereas lack of political commitment have being the biggest problem in the developing countries. A strategy approach needs to be in place one based on diagnosis and drawing on human resource strategy management expertise. Also to be taken into account are process factors in reform; providing for the ‘victim’ of reform, loosening the link between downsizing and pay reform and refining the role of donors in supporting reform.
For Mauritius, the government adopted a strategic approach to staffing in the reform of a ‘strategic human resource model” including the relationship between public staff management and economic growth. But all this did not lead the way for its economic growth. There was no framework in place, staff management was highly centralized and the political will to make changes in staff management was lacking. This improvement in Mauritius and in most developing countries in Africa would require a creative and piecemeal adaptation of the Anglophone “good practice” that respects political, economic and social realities.
In Tanzania, the main problem was that the politics and other institutional factor affected the way public servants were managed. The single party political system affected the efficiency and integrity of government. For instance, power was centralized in the presidents office and the replicated in the civil service commission and the civil service Department, which meant that line ministries had little staffing decisions. The outcome of corruption and favoritism lead to the lost of confidence in the integrity of the civil service staffing by the civil servants and the public at large.
On morocco, there was a problem on political staffing reform. This lead to why human resource management in Moroccan civil service stagnated, such as the lack of familiarity with strategic human resource models and and the French administrative heritage. The main problem in morocco was the political system in which power remain in the “palace” and political actors where reluctant to take bold initiatives.
In Swaziland, the single most responsible factor for stagnation of not only staff management reform but also of development programs was the absence of political system in which traditional rulers have so much power just like in the case of morocco where power remained in the palace.
Namibia a country faced with severe health problem that included alarming AIDS infection rate, took to manage its health workers. It patiently built a up a relatively good framework on strategic management of health policies in the context of overall government policies, including strong training arrangements at each level of health staffing and brought HIV/AIDS under this strategies umbrella through its National Strategic Plan for HIV/AIDS, but the plan overwhelmed by HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis infection, thus creating problems and tension between building long-term capacity in a strategic context and responding to the short-term demand of the AIDS and tuberculosis crisis
Africa as a whole in regards to strategic human resource management needs a normative model of  management in countries whose political dispensation and institutional structure are flawed should concentrate more on correcting those flaws by first emphasizing compliance with organizational norms. In contrast countries whose political dispensation and institutional structure are sound are able to concentrate on refining their strategic framework and improving the professional conduct of their human resources. With the purpose of improving staff performance and performance of public service.
 
III.             AFRICAN MODEL OF LEADERSHIP
African model of leadership Psychology is generally characterized by connections between object, human and the supernatural. Although this emphasis may vary from one ethnic group or tribe to another. The quest for equilibrium with other human being and with the supernatural is the main factor. ‘’ Self-reliance and self-interest tend to make a back seat to ethnicity and group loyalty” (Dia.1994, p.176). It would be unrealistic to suppose that the African model of leadership would apply to the vast continent of Africa even if we focus nations generally referred to as “south of the sahara” for example Nigeria. Given the cultural heterogeneity of many African countries, similar dangers exsit in relation to individual nations. (Adigun,1995). Amid all the diversities noted, there are sufficient similarities for a tentative profile to be drawn. (Blunt and Jones, 1992). In Africa, interpersonal relation is more value compared to individual achievements. The ritual surrounding economic transaction lies as much on the capacity to reinforce group ties as does in their worth,and second ethnic or tribal wealth; often it can be acquired legitimately at the expense of the organization (Dia, 1994). In many circumstance, interpersonal relation and ceremonial rituals reciprocity and the distribution of scant resource to clan and ethnic affiliation are therefore natural responsibility of leadership in Africa. (kolawole, 1996; Nzeribe, 1986; Warren et al., 1996) African societies tend to be egalitarian with age groups, but hierarchical or gerontocratic between age groups (Linquist and Adolph, 1996). This makes leader often behave and are expected to behave paternalistically (Jones et al., 1995) leader bestow favors and expect to receive obeisance or deference. African societies seem to have great capacity also for tolerance and forgiveness. How else can we understand attempts of reconciliation with former oppressors by African leader like Jomo Kenyatta, Robert Mugabe and Nelson Mandela? Nelson Mandela who after decades of imprisonment comes out to be the architect of black/white reconciliation? Such tolerance and acceptance of human frailty, runs counter to philosophies which espouse the survival of the fittest..
In many African settings, emphasis is placed on a leaders ability to honor his or her obligation to ethnic affiliate, without denying other to an extent which causes conflict to break out into the open (Nzeribe,1989). Organization would not pull together because of ethnic or family based cleavage. Followers appear not to want it, they prefer a leader who is considerate and understands one who is too dynamic and productive. Maybe of course large government organizations such as that investigated in the Jones et al. study do not require such inspirational individuals –corporate heroes to the extent that kotter (1990) assert to be the case with enterprise which have a cope with turbulent environments.
As the economies of most African countries grow, so does the western and asian notion of leadership and strategic management grow in the African continent. But don’t forget Africa has its own management and leadership ways!
IV.             EMPLOYMENT OWNERSHIP IN ENTERPRISE IN AFRICA.
In Africa, employee ownership is hard to compile because there is little evidence on the extent of ownership. Employee ownership firms, other than cooperation do not always have unique legal identities and these do not readily show –up in official statistics (Wright et al., 1989).
In countries where employee ownership privatization have occurred in most cases, if not ownership is rare in African countries. However few important privatization lead to ownership with fewer than fifty cases lead out of a total initiative of 2,700( Campbell white and Bhatia, 1998). Political privatization in these African countries has lead to less employee ownership. State owned enterprise (SOEs) have been responsible for an especially large activity since the 1960 as a result of import subsides and nationalization of state-owned interest (Fundanga and Mwaba, 1997). Most SEOs cannot perform properly as a result of political instability, civil wars and political repression, as a result the became more of a liability than an asset to already debt ridden public finance (Dzakpasu,1998). The main objective of privatization in most African countries has being to reduce fiscal burden of poor performing SEOs rather than ownership. However observer questions whether broadening ownership is as important as stated. And suggest that raising case and meeting loan conditions imposed by multilateral agencies such as World Bank are among the most important reason for privatization. Privatization in most sub-Sahara African countries has being the sale of competitive tender of purchase rather than shares. Underdevelopment or non-existent capital market and the modest size of most transactions have tended not to favor the use of stock market flotation (Bennell, 1996).
 The average size of privatization in most African countries are some in number with the exception of bigger countries like Nigeria, their average sale value is under three million dollar(US). Employee ownerships associated with privatization has being the allocation of proportion equity for employee purchase during a public floatation or a share sale. Flotation has being the main relatively uncommon form of privatization in Africa, with Nigeria being the main exception. Only Nigeria, Kenya and Cote d’ivoire has established stock exchanges with Zambia attempting to develop its stock exchange alongside its privatization programs (Campbell white and Bhatia 1990; 120).
V.                THE CHALLENGE
The subject of change influences much of what is currently being written about management. Most countris in Africa are being exhorted to adapt to changes and hence introduce modern technology, leadership skills and more effective means of communication. It has become evident that any conuntry that wishes to achieve rapid, substantial and sustainable improvements in growth, in other words in physical-asset performance, must act strategically.
After Africa was left alone from thier colonial masters, maintence of most infatructure has being the main problem. Maintenance actions are dependent on such factors as the plant’s downtime history, and its expected life. Maintenance should preserve the functions of the assets. With rising expectations, increasingly onerous regulatory constraints, shifting technological paradigms and frequent reorganisations, most countries have developed formal mission-statements to help them maintain a successful course through these many demands. Thus, it is worth developing a corresponding commitment to facilitate the strategic mangement team doing likewise. The mission statement must recognise the needs of all the stakeholders of the maintenance service. Maintenance serves three distinct groups – the owners of the asset, the users (usually the operators), and society as a whole. Maintenance depends on a range of people – from designers of the equipment to its operators. Thus it is desirable to acknowledge the need for everyone involved with the asset to share a correct common understanding of what needs to be done, and to be able and willing to do whatever is needed right first time, every time.
If systems do not fail, maintenance would be superfluous! The technology of maintenance includes finding and applying suitable ways of managing techniques that include predictive and preventive maintenance, failure-finding and run-to-failure (J. Moubray, 2000). Each category includes a host of options: maintainers need to learn what these options are, but they also need to decide which are worth implementing in their own organisations. If they make the right choices, it is possible to improve asset performance, and simultaneously even reduce the cost of maintenance. If they make wrong choices, new problems may arise while existing problems get worse, so the mission statement should stress the need to make the most cost-effective choices from the full array of options. The severity and frequency with which a failure incurs adverse consequences dictate whether a particular failure-management technique is worth applying. So, the mission statement should acknowledge the key role of consequence avoidance in maintenance. The development and execution of a maintenance strategy for an industrial plant consists of three steps (J. Moubray, 2000):
Formulate a maintenance strategy for each asset (i.e., work identification).
Acquire the resources (namely skilled people, spares and tools) needed to execute the strategy effectively.
Execute the well thought-out strategy (i.e., deploy and operate the systems needed to manage the resources efficiently).
Most of what has been written on maintenance strategy refers to three basic types, namely, predictive, preventive and corrective maintenance. However, Moubray (J. Moubray, 1995) adds a fourth, that is, detective maintenance. Predictive (or condition-based) tasks entail checking to see if the process is failing. Preventive maintenance usually means overhauling a system before its failure occurs: it is divided into time-based and condition-based maintenance. Time-based (according to a fixed time-schedule) maintenance is wasteful if no faults exist. Corrective maintenance means fixing or replacing components either when they are found to be failing or when they have failed. Detective (i.e., failure-finding) maintenance applies only to hidden or unrevealed failures and hidden failures usually only affect protective devices.
In spite of the availability of all of the aforementioned maintenance policies and their abilities to prevent failures or restore the system to its operating condition in most situations, deteriorations and breakdowns still occur and associated environmental disasters happen. Each maintenance policy has its own limitations and disadvantages. For example, in the case of failure-based maintenance, it is difficult to plan the maintenance activities appropriately: thus, the failure of the considered component can cause a large amount of consequential damage to other parts of the system or plant. Time-based maintenance incurs a large financial cost for the user in trying to maintain the required level of system reliability, because the majority of items are replaced prematurely, i.e., while they still have a considerable useful-life remaining (H. Saranga 2002).
In condition-based maintenance, it may not be cost effective to monitor the condition of every component of the system: some will be inaccessible for monitoring. So, it is beneficial not to treat condition-based maintenance as a stand-alone policy, but instead as a part of an integrated maintenance strategy. Consequently, the industry has become aware that a single maintenance policy cannot eliminate all breakdowns or restore the plant to its full operating capability.
I.                   Conclusion
The text and literature shows that the issue of the Strategic management in Africa and the ways of governance. The globalization, colonial influence and the governments of African countries has influenced management in Africa. Although, in general most theories reversed above apply to not all the regions in Africa, but we can generalize as being a representation of all regions in Africa. Even though we focus more on Nigeria.
The cultural and social economic situation in Africa is vast, difficult and a stressful topic to talk about even the with years of reform and globalization, strategic management in the African continent is still being influenced by history and colonial powers and also due to the “western style” of strategic management being difficult to adopt.
With the years coming there will be more and more researches and studies examining the effect of this strategic management styles being adopted by African countries as it reflects the world economic and the “West” who have had a upper hand in globalization and control of the economies of most part of continent for a long time.. This would reflect the need of more knowledge about the process of strategic management in Africa as it’s become a focus not only in Africa, but to the whole world.
 
 
 
References
H. Saranga. (2002) Relevant condition parameter strategy for an effective condition-based maintenance,
 
J Qual Maint Eng 8 (1), pp. 92–105
 
Mike Wright, Andrew Pendleton and Ken Robbie. (2000) Employee Owner in Enterprise in Africa and Asia/
Int. J. of human Resource Management (11:1 ), Taylor & Francis.
 
J. Moubray. (2000) The case against streamside RCM.
Aladon Ltd, Ashville (N. Carolina) (2000).
 
Ogwo J Umeh, Califonia state University, East bay (2008). The role of human Resource mangement in succeful National Development and goverment Strategies in Africa and Asia:
Public Administration Review.,
 
 New york palgrave Macmillan (2006) 256.pp
 
J. Moubray. (2000) Maintenance management a new paradigm
Aladon Ltd, Ashville (N. Carolina) (1995).