International business and Africa: Theoretical and applied challenges, and future directions

Abstract

In response to Nachum et al.’s (J Int Bus Stud, 2023) call for further research in Africa by international business (IB) scholars, we argue that while IB scholars may have been slow to engage with Africa, the same cannot be said of related and IB-relevant business and management scholarship. There is already a substantial body of work on Africa in other domains of business and management scholarship – and relevant theorizing – that represents an important resource for IB scholarship. In contextualizing the ‘interesting’, we identify several contemporary theoretical strands that have so far characterized ‘Africa research’, interrogate ongoing challenges that mitigate these efforts, and suggest ways in which further research that speaks to theoretical, practical, and policy issues might inform IB researchers’ engagement with Africa. Specifically, we set out the broader scope of the African business/management debate that might inform IB research, re-examine African diversity through the prism of ‘theoretical tensions and puzzles’, and consider the role of emergent indigenous theorizing such as ubuntu and Africapitalism that make Africa both ‘interesting’ and worthy of IB inquiry.