If Culture Is Software Of The Mind, Then Ours Needs An Upgrade: Lamentations On Our Illiteracy Of African Business And Culture

Abstract

Acknowledging culture as the “software of the mind” (Hofstede, 1994), this paper asserts that international business, management, and marketing scholars have done too little to address the practitioner community’s need for a better knowledgebase regarding African cultures.  Despite the importance of Africa to the global economy, transnational marketing, and even the prosperity of rising Asian economic powers, scholars have produced little practicable business knowledge on African national cultures.  Over the last thirty years, three leading scholarly projects on national culture, including the work of Hofstede, Trompenaars and Hampden-Turner, and the GLOBE Study, have collectively provided empirical data on a total of only twelve African nations.  This paper identifies basic deficiencies in the study of African cultures, highlights the impact of those deficiencies to the cultural knowledgebase, and suggests resolutions for upgrading intelligence on key African cultures vital to transnational business interests.