Monthly Archives: September 2012
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Mugabe Pushing Zimbabweans to the Brink? – By Marko Phiri
In Zimbabwe, serious questions are being asked as to whether President Robert Mugabe is bent on stirring the country back to the political chaos of 2008 ... -
East African Oil and Gas: proper environmental planning needed to avoid disaster – By Thembi Mutch
East Africa is about to experience a hydrocarbon induced economic boom. However, the disconnect between what oil and petrol companies say is happening regarding the development ... -
African Business Culture Tips: Part 5 – Courtesy Should be a Line Item
So I had dinner with an African country chief of one of the world’s top 5 most recognised brands. And in the course of conversation he confided in ... -
African Business Culture Tips: Part 4 – Sentiment Matters
It is not always a sign of rudeness for someone to barge in without an appointment. Sometimes it is a simple sign of affection. It is ... -
African Business Culture Tips: Part 3 – Don’t Confuse “Culture” with “Structure”
This is hard. There is a long-running battle in the social sciences about which worldview – the cultural or the structural –best explains human systems. You are not ... -
African Business Culture Tips: Part 2 – CSR is Dead
There is a very deceptive paradox in the fact that in places like Africa the conversations around CSR are hopelessly archaic while at the same time the way ... -
African Business Culture Tips: Part 1 – The Cult of Precision
A common complaint I have heard business partners and employees of global (“˜westernised’) companies in Africa often make is that the latter are too obsessed with exactitude. The ... -
Five Business Culture Tips from An African Perspective – By Bright Simons
There is a tradition dating back at least 3 decades in the Western world that technical innovation on its own is rarely the make or break ... -
Mali: time to assert continuing cultural diversity after the coup – By Celeste Hicks
In all the depressing headlines about Mali becoming West Africa’s “˜new Afghanistan’, or the frustrated editorials about the country’s apparent political paralysis (the ICG’s Gilles Yabi ... -
Economic Growth in South Africa: has the ANC got it wrong? – By Moeletsi Mbeki and Refiloe Morwe
A couple of years ago when still a political analyst for Nedbank, one of South Africa’s leading banks, I was asked by a fund manager in ...
