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Women of Power Revisited: African Women in Leadership through the Ages, Space, Time, and Governance chapter provides an overview of what Africa has witnessed as the world's greatest civilizations through the stories of four of her Queens. The chapter examines women in leadership positions in ancient Africa: namely, Makeda, referred to as Queen of Sheba; Queen mother of Ejusu, Yaa Asantewaa of Ashanti; Queen Nzinga of Angola; and Hatshepsut. Africa has an indomitable spirit that consists of different forms of texts representing the rich diversity that constitute the great civilizations and empires the world has ever had. The chapter challenges the perpetuated notion that Africa is mostly jungle and uninhabited except for Egypt. It is this stereotyped image of Africa that prompted us to write about the four African Queens to illuminate salient features of African Indigenous women in leadership and how it can be applied in contemporary institutions.

The discussion is anchored on spirituality and womanism as our discursive frameworks. We also evoke creation stories which provide the essence of beginning of settlements of humans on our planet earth with particular focus on African Indigenous women's contribution to leadership. In addition, the chapter highlights the colonial oppression, and the current colonial legacies that she is struggling to deal with, including political and economic leadership. The emphasis is to disavow the Eurocentric and colonial fallacy that Africa is without history, without structure, and without kings and queens. This cannot be done without understanding the beginning of African-centered leadership. It is with this understanding that chapter embarked on the journey or path of decolonizing leadership models in our institutions.

In this chapter, we have presented four case studies of the firms which are operating in the medium complete adapting countries. The four cases are Arvidsson Textile Share Company in Estonia, Partec Rockwool in Lithuania, Accel Share Company in Lithuania and Ragn-Sells in Estonia. The case studies are prepared following the structure of the theoretical framework applied in this book. We have found out that the performance of Arvidsson Textile Share Company is successful as it matches the expectations if the partners and it has remained to be more or less the same since its establishment. The performance of Partec Rockwool was also successful from the very beginning until it was replaced by the fully owned firm. Accel Share Company's operations in Lithuania was successful from the very beginning as it found the right people with the right competence in the local market. In the case of Ragn-Sells in Estonia, the alliance was successful but not up to the full expectation.

The function for the historically Black college and university (HBCU) has always been a hallmark of resolve educational inclusion and justice to promote the Negro identity, and develop social and economic mobility. Yet despite diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) determinations popular today, the authors contend that to cater to subpopulations outside of the Black community creates a marginalization and distraction from their historic purpose and legacy. As a necessary function of relevance, the focus of underserved populations on HBCU campuses should, instead, unwaveringly remain on African-Americans, descendants of slaves (DoS). We empirically examine HBCU academic curricula for African-American consciousness that is forward thinking for community advocacy and social justice. Research findings of HBCU course catalogs (N = 98) describe a very limited scope of course titles and descriptions that appear to cultivate intellectual tools to engage in racial and ethnic self-advocacy as a vital role for continued survival. The authors contend that the relevance of HBCU institutions cannot be fully realized and promoted absent a comprehensive understanding of the educational and socioeconomic status of the African-American population. Discussed are the implications and recommendations of how HBCUs will be able to retain their uniqueness and viability of purpose, including the application of social reconstructive theory in practice, as a theoretical framework.

This paper deals with the organizing of interactive product development. Developing products in interaction between firms may provide benefits in terms of specialization, increased innovation, and possibilities to perform development activities in parallel. However, the differentiation of product development among a number of firms also implies that various dependencies need to be dealt with across firm boundaries. How dependencies may be dealt with across firms is related to how product development is organized. The purpose of the paper is to explore dependencies and how interactive product development may be organized with regard to these dependencies.

The analytical framework is based on the industrial network approach, and deals with the development of products in terms of adaptation and combination of heterogeneous resources. There are dependencies between resources, that is, they are embedded, implying that no resource can be developed in isolation. The characteristics of and dependencies related to four main categories of resources (products, production facilities, business units and business relationships) provide a basis for analyzing the organizing of interactive product development.

Three in-depth case studies are used to explore the organizing of interactive product development with regard to dependencies. The first two cases are based on the development of the electrical system and the seats for Volvo’s large car platform (P2), performed in interaction with Delphi and Lear respectively. The third case is based on the interaction between Scania and Dayco/DFC Tech for the development of various pipes and hoses for a new truck model.

The analysis is focused on what different dependencies the firms considered and dealt with, and how product development was organized with regard to these dependencies. It is concluded that there is a complex and dynamic pattern of dependencies that reaches far beyond the developed product as well as beyond individual business units. To deal with these dependencies, development may be organized in teams where several business units are represented. This enables interaction between different business units’ resource collections, which is important for resource adaptation as well as for innovation. The delimiting and relating functions of the team boundary are elaborated upon and it is argued that also teams may be regarded as actors. It is also concluded that a modular product structure may entail a modular organization with regard to the teams, though, interaction between business units and teams is needed. A strong connection between the technical structure and the organizational structure is identified and it is concluded that policies regarding the technical structure (e.g. concerning “carry-over”) cannot be separated from the management of the organizational structure (e.g. the supplier structure). The organizing of product development is in itself a complex and dynamic task that needs to be subject to interaction between business units.