Managerial behaviour in Ghana and Kenya

The notion that management knowledge and skills are of universal validity has been vigorously challenged by several authors during the past two or more decades. The failure of numerous Western sponsored management transfer initiatives in Africa and elsewhere bears eloquent testimony to this. The available evidence underscores the importance of undertaking a critical examination of the assumptions underlying these transfer efforts. How can we, for example, explain the high incidence of relapse to former behaviour when African managers return from carefully designed and executed training  programmes? In its search for explanation to this and similar phenomena, the contemporary literature has hinted at the possible influence of culture on  managerial behaviour. The underlying premise for this line of enquiry is that management is culturally specific. That is, the dominant logic within an  organization has its foundations in the beliefs, values of the ambient society as well as the cultural orientations of its leading members. If it is realized that  Western management concepts, skills and techniques have evolved as solutions to specific socio-economic problems in the West and are, as such, dependent on the cultural values, norms and practices of these countries to succeed, it becomes instructive to argue that the cultures of non-Western  countries do influence the receptivity and practice of concepts imported into them.