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The purpose of this chapter is to identify African financial management practices, highlight their origin and explain how they differ from their Western counterparts. The study identified indigenous African financial practices using literature review, archival sources and library research covering the five areas of Africa comprising Northern Africa, Eastern Africa, Central Africa Western Africa and Southern Africa. The study found out that pre-colonial indigenous African financial management features prevalent use of trade finance, trade credit management, investment management and accounting. While there is also evidence of modification of Western financial management practices to suit African contexts, it is on the whole scarce. This is suggestive of the fact that they were in existence in the first instance. The clear conclusion is that many indigenous African financial management practices pre-dated and foreshadowed their Western counterparts. Yet, it is confounding that this has been largely lost sight of, and both scholars and financial management practitioners depict the former as inferior. There is clearly a need to remedy this situation. Educators need to focus on incorporating ethno-finance concepts into the entire curricula chain from basic to higher education. The anchor point for such curricula is Ubuntu philosophy. Financial management practitioners, on their part, need to shed notions that the indigenous practices are inferior and seek to journalise their day-to-day work experiences to build a body of documented practice.

Over a long period of time, the evolution and development of indigenous management theories and practices in Africa have been seriously distracted and hindered by European colonialism and Western education. The colonial administration introduced Western management theories and practices, considered as the drivers and the remedy for the continent’s socio-politico-economic development. Western scholarship and literature generally undervalued and condemned the management proficiency and practices of early African civilisations, as evidenced, for instance, in the building of the great Egyptian pyramids. Foreign management systems generally botched the development of indigenous African business practices as they failed to achieve the expected goals. We argue that the development of indigenous African management practices and philosophy ought to be rooted in the African culture, value system and beliefs to provide the practical way for the efficient and effective running of organisations in Africa. Nevertheless, there are still indigenous family business management practices that can be co-opted into today’s business practices. The Ubuntu management system and the ‘new management techniques’, which emphasise humanness, communalism and African patriotism, provide the veritable starting point for the development of indigenous African management philosophy. The chapter starts with a brief description of family business in Africa. Highlighting the relevant indigenous management practices, to mention, strategic process, governance, human resource and succession planning then follow in this order. The next section is on the origins of the indigenous management practices and then we conclude with a section on unique differences from Western models and provide advice to educators and practitioners. As an approach, the cases that have been used are for illustration purposes and do not claim to be representative of African indigenous business practices since Africa is too diverse.

Losing indigenous knowledge is to lose the future and impoverish the societies because indigenous knowledge is considered one of the cornerstones and survival of communities, societies and economies. This study, thus, aims to explore and assess the contextual enablers of indigenous knowledge and their role in developing and sustaining the Ewe communities in Ghana.

The qualitative research design, which enabled the researcher to engage the participants in an interview process and observation, was used in this study. It was augmented with a quantitative design using structured questions. Data analysis was guided by the basic principles of grounded theory. The coding system was aided by NVivo to analyze the qualitative data, while the quantitative data was analyzed using the SPSS. Descriptive analysis and graphs were deployed in the presentation of the findings.

The study discovered that the communities are in possession of several types of indigenous knowledge, ranging from tacit to explicit knowledge, which are embedded in their cultural and traditional systems and unique to every community; the culture of trust among the citizens and motivation to create and share knowledge in communities was high. Same time, family heads, farmer groups, libraries and museums played key roles in the preservation and management of indigenous knowledge in the communities. On the other hand, information officers and institutions like churches and police posts played insignificant roles in the management and preservation of knowledge in the communities just as the absence of a culture of willingness by the community members to create and share knowledge. Additionally, there was an absence of technological infrastructure, platforms, databases and policies to aid the management and preservation of knowledge in the communities. The study concludes that indigenous knowledge plays a vital role in the development and sustainability of communities in Ghana.

Community leaders and political leaders need to invest in systems and structures that will promote the management and preservation of indigenous knowledge for the development of the communities and the state as a whole.

The study demonstrates its originality in terms of scope, setting, population and empirical evidence by focusing on the role of indigenous knowledge in the sustainability and development of Ewe communities in Ghana.

Over decades, indigenous management practices and their values in Africa have changed from time to time. However, it continued to remain relevant in most business organisations in developing countries. Today in Africa and across the globe, there is a paradigm shift and stiff competition in human resource management practices as a basic element for effective and efficient business organisations’ performance. Effective human resource management practices and performance of organisations rely on the integration of indigenous management practices and sound strategies aligned to cultural values and cores business objectives. The study covers four regions of Africa as a continent. Empirical teachings of the study form a basis for active reforms and innovations, so as to revamp the use of indigenous knowledge, which was deliberately destroyed by colonial masters. Over the years, human resource management practice has evolved in favour of Western strategies and ideologies. Advocates for curriculum reforms in all African countries so as to incorporate indigenous knowledge content, since it is believed to be the future of Africa. An appropriate employees management practice in Africa is a necessary move in today’s business community as it enhances service delivery and performance. The application of indigenous management practices is believed to play a vital role and invokes effective decision-making practices in the business organisation. Therefore, the chapter traces the origin of indigenous wisdom and its fundamental structure in management practices. This chapter attempts to throw light on indigenous management practices and their values in business organisations in Africa.

Africa's diverse geographic regions are replete with indigenous business knowledge and practices embedded in the traditions, values and culture of the people. Many of these practices have been explored in the previous chapters of this book. This final chapter provides viable recommendations for adopting and improving Africa's indigenous business practices and methodologies. We expect that these observations and recommendations will support Africa's educators', business actors' and policymakers' efforts to draw from and apply rich insights from indigenous business knowledge and practices. However, beyond this, we hope that international enterprises operating in the continent can learn about the uniquely African business values and incorporate them appropriately into a context that fits. This concluding chapter, therefore, discusses how these objectives may be achieved.

The purpose of this paper is to reveal gaps in knowledge about energy industries, federal and provincial governments and indigenous communities’ energy management policies and practices, as well as to highlight areas requiring further research and knowledge development.

This paper used a scoping review framework according to scoping methodological framework.

This paper suggests that researchers need to examine Indigenous communities on past leaks response records, pipelines leaks impacts in their health and environment and current risk management processes and regulations to identify weaknesses. This review paper also suggests that significant time will be required to meaningfully and honestly engage with communities to move from acceptance, through approval, to co-ownership of the project as the firm builds its legitimacy, credibility and trust with Indigenous communities.

The authors introduce an original approach to scoping methodological framework that directly addresses the processes of reveal gaps in knowledge and practice. It offers researchers, policy-makers, community and practitioners an alternative approach which is culturally appropriate for improving economic and environmental health outcomes of marginalised groups.

This paper aims to address the main arguments put forward in Grietjie Verhoef’s article and contribute to a wider debate among management scholars on the role of indigenous theories. It challenges the view of African management as illusory and points to the rising support for indigenous theories as indicative of the weakening of the unquestioned dominance of universal theories.

This paper takes a conceptual and critically reflective approach, underpinned by a 360-degree evaluation of pertinent literature and theoretical arguments.

This paper reveals an underlying symmetry and interconnectedness, anchored on a shared communal ethos, among Afrocentric management concepts, specifically Ubuntu, Ekpe and Igbo apprenticeship systems. This symmetry points to an underlying indigenous management theory that begs to be further conceptualised, evidenced and advanced.

This paper affirms Verhoef’s demand for Ubuntu, Ekpe, Igbo apprenticeship system to be more rigorously developed and theoretically coherent and urges scholars to intensify effort towards advancing the conceptual and empirical foundations of African management. Echoing Mahatma Gandhi’s timeless counsel, this paper calls on critics of African management to join the effort to bring about the change they wish to see in African management theorising.

This paper disavows the alleged effort to impose a single “African management” model or perpetuate the “colonial/indigenous” binary divide but equally cautions against an effort to veto scholarly striving for a common identity, to learn from history or not embrace collective amnesia. As examples from the USA and Europe show, diversity, even heterogeneity, needs not to preclude the forging of a commonly shared identity complemented with appropriate sub-identities.

This paper links the African management-centred themes addressed by Verhoef to the wider debate among management scholars about lessening the dominance of universal theories and allowing space for context-resonant indigenous theories. It calls on African management scholars to invest the premium and intensified effort towards building a more robust and coherent body of indigenous theory that will have the capacity and efficacy to inform, explain and advance organisational practice and outcomes across Africa.