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To understand African small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) performance and its antecedents is essential, both from a strategic management and an industrial development perspective. While a substantial literature on African SMEs has emerged in recent years, studies of their performance specifically are few and inconclusive. The purpose of this paper is to address this lacuna in the literature by examining variations in performance of 210 East African SMEs.

The paper employs OLS and logistic regression and Classify k-means test to analyze performance variations in a unique data set of 210 food processing enterprises in Tanzania, Kenya and Zambia.

Three generic types of African SMEs are identified based on performance: laggards, followers and gazelles. The gazelles are typically medium-sized, skill-intensive companies selling relatively differentiated products in niche markets. The laggards are typically small, capital-intensive companies involved in grain milling that adopt a cost differentiation strategy. A key driver of variation in performance is found to be the quality of the external business environment (in particular the quality of intermediary markets), and also capability factors such as the strength of management. Strategy factors such as differentiation and political strategies explain performance variations.

Among the policy implications are that African industrial policy should focus on improving the functioning of intermediary markets, e.g. by reducing the transaction costs of inter-firm collaboration. Moreover, rather than focusing industrial policy on SMEs per se, policymakers should focus on those types of enterprises that are capable of generating high performance, e.g. skill-intensive enterprises with strong managerial capabilities, engaged in differentiation strategies.

The paper integrates the extant literature on African SME performance, develops an analytical framework for studying it and presents novel empirical insights based on one of the most detailed surveys of SME performance in the continent to date. The findings have important and tangible implications for literature, as well as for industrial policy.

This paper examines the influence of relationship lending on the financial performance of Savings and Credit Co-operative Societies (SACCOS) in Tanzania.

A panel data of 460 observations representing 115 SACCOS from Tanzania was used. Descriptive statistics and panel regression models were employed to analyse the data.

The results show that the duration of the relationship is negatively and significantly related to SACCOS financial performance, substantiating the relationship lending theories. The number of relationships has an insignificant effect on financial performance.

The study focused on the duration and the number of relationships as aspects of relationship lending. The paper is limited in the sense that other aspects of relationship lending such as the concentration of relationships that could affect financial performance are not included in this study. The results apply to SACCOS and not to other microfinance institutions with strong bargaining power.

This study positions relationship lending in the SACCOS context where the market for the wholesale loan is less competitive.

The purpose of this paper is to assess the perceptions of both universities and the resource-extractive companies on the influence of university-industry linkages (UILs) on innovation in a developing country.

A total of 404 respondents were interviewed. Descriptive analysis and multinomial logistic regression models were applied to analyse the data.

The findings revealed significant differences between the three informant groups across the three main groups of linkage activities. The industry informants consider all three groups of UILs important for enhancing innovation, in terms of bringing student closer to the industry. The faculty members consider consultancy and research arrangements more important than collaboration, in training and educational activities. The student perceptions on all UIL activities were relatively weak on UIL activities as a vehicle to improve innovation.

Based on the findings, it seems that the universities should take advantage of a positive attitude among industrial actors and intensify efforts to develop UILs.

The research can be used for sharpen international oil companies effort towards universities in petroleum rich developing countries.

Implications for policymakers and universities in developing countries, and for the local industrial base. In a broad sense the UIL stimulated innovation has implications on poverty reduction in natural resource-rich host countries.

Research on UILs in developing countries is rare, particularly in a context in which international companies are faced with host country expectations and legal requirements to invest in knowledge sector and local industry.

The purpose of this paper is to identify important university-industry linkage (UIL) activities that can stimulate the likelihood of employability among students.

A total of 404 respondents located in Tanzania, comprising students, faculty members and employees from 20 companies operating within the oil and gas industry and mining constitute the empirical basis for the study. Descriptive analysis, the Mann-Whitney U-test and a Kruskal-Wallis test were applied to help analyse the data.

The results reveal that UIL activities were strongly perceived to raise the employability of students, in particular student internships in companies followed by joint projects and the involvement of companies in modernizing university curricula. Adoption and diffusion internship strategies are suggested for foreign companies and for local firm, respectively, as vehicles for increasing employability.

Perceived effects on the likelihood of employability are measured, and not actual effects.

The findings have implications for foreign companies exploring resources in the host country, local firms trying to improve competitiveness, universities trying to improve its role in society, students preparing for work-life and policy makers defining premises for resource-extractive foreign companies.

Very few empirical studies of UILs have previously been carried out in a developing country context, and in particular in dealing with student employability. The fact that many developing nations have attractive rich natural resources implies that international companies have a motive to invest in the UILs, and possess valuable competencies that can improve the overall quality of the universities and the attractiveness of graduating students.

This case study aims to investigate how locally additively manufactured functional parts can make African metrology institutes more sustainable and independent. These institutes provide calibration services, which links the measurement units to industrial and everyday measurements. This traceability is critical to overcome technical barriers to trade and industrialisation. Most African countries have such a designated institute that requires advanced scientific instrumentation. These instruments are custom-built for a specific application, hard to procure or sometimes obsolete. Servicing these instruments or obtaining spare parts are also difficult. The purpose aims to evaluate if three-dimensional (3D) printing can significantly improve this situation, by providing six institutes with a 3D printer and training.

Therefore, a 3D printer pilot project was launched, involving six African metrology institutes, with the aim of developing the basic manufacturing capabilities of these institutes so that they can produce functional parts. The project included training on both digital part modelling and 3D printer usage. This case study reviews the technology selection method, project risks, needs, challenges and results, with the aid of research questions.

The results of the project illustrate how additive manufacturing (AM) has started to enable metrology in Africa and how it can be expanded to the general scientific endeavour on the continent.

The success of this project can be used to motivate the further adoption of AM in African National Metrology Institutes, as well as other scientific institutes.

The project is the first AM project of its kind for African National Metrology Institutes.