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Although the prior literature has identified the relevance of dealer participation for multinational enterprises (MNEs), it is unclear whether such participation could also be an important means for local dealers to learn from MNEs. By adopting local firms’ viewpoint, our study draws on organizational learning theory to examine how local dealers benefit from their participation with foreign suppliers in Africa.

The empirical setting is a combinative dataset of secondary data and primary survey of 164 small- and medium-sized local dealers with nine subsidiaries of a Chinese motorcycle company in six countries of Sub-Saharan Africa.

This research shows that dealer participation is positively associated with dealer performance, and this positive effect is stronger when local dealers operate in regions with low government corruption and high government support. However, the positive relationship is weaker when local dealers use the local tongue extensively but becomes stronger when their foreign suppliers have a high dealer coverage.

By taking a local-participant perspective, our study extends the participation literature to show how firms from a resource-constrained region may benefit from their proactive participation with foreign counterparts. Additionally, we identify the boundary conditions of institutional factors and strategic choices of local dealers and foreign suppliers, providing a nuanced understanding of firm behaviors in complex and uncertain markets.

Using the affect theory of social exchange, this study investigates the mediating role of students' affective commitment between their personality traits (extraversion and agreeableness) and academic performance.

This research employs mixed-method study, that is exploratory text analysis using 123 responses followed by a survey of 300 responses among the management students to test the proposed model.

Results reveal a direct positive association of extraversion and agreeableness with students' affective commitment towards their academic institution. Additionally, negative indirect effects of affective commitment were found between the two personality traits and academic performance.

The study highlights both positive and negative outcomes of so-called favorable personality types of extraversion and agreeableness, thereby, building a prima facie case for promoting personality diversity in management institutions.