Probing managerial behavior: Image and reality in Southern Africa

Abstract

In the belief that Africa's political and cultural environment is likely to have unique effects on its administrative systems, many Western observers have expected to find correspondingly unique managerial behavior in that part of the world. These expectations take on a systematic quality that is often thought to characterize African management. First of all, since the concept of public interest is only beginning to emerge in these newly-independent countries, African managers are expected to be primarily motivated by hopes of personal or tribal gain rather than improved institutional performance. And because the bureaucratic organizations themselves were bequeathed by the imperial colonists and thus do not follow local institutional traditions, American and Europeans expect to find them preoccupied with internal problems to the neglect of larger goals and purposes. Third, because many Westerners are somewhat baffled by the politics of Pan-Africanism and African socialism, they expect to find bureaucratic behavior to be somewhat unrealistic because the system is thought to be suffused with ideology and political fantasy. Then because they understand the goals and functions of the private sector better than those of the public or parastatal sector, they expect corporation managers to be more entrepreneurial and more efficient than their counterparts in public and parastatal organizations. And finally, because of the political uncertainties on the continent, African managers are expected to be unusually risk averse, especially when it comes to adopting institutional innovations. This article draws upon data gathered in a recent study of management in nine Southern African countries to investigate these five images. The results of the investigation show that managerial behavior in Africa is less exotic than these expectations, though they also provide some useful warning signals to European and American development advisors who may be tempted to recommend standard administrative reforms as a remedy for all shortcomings.