Connecting the world to entrepreneurship in Sub-Saharan Africa

Following the resounding success of the international workshop on Entrepreneurship and Innovation in sub-Saharan Africa—co-organized by the AfrIE Research Hub at Nottingham Trent University, the INSEEC Research Center, and supported by the Management Consulting Division of the Academy of Management, held in Nottingham in February 2025—the inaugural SSAFEI International Conference is scheduled to take place in Paris in March 2026.

Most of the management and organizational theories in use today are implicitly or explicitly centered around developed markets and Western contexts (Barkema, Chen, George, Luo, & Tsui, 2015). This bias may reduce the possibility of seeing phenomenons in their true forms (Tsui, 2007). In response, scholars have advocated for a “decolonization” movement within academia, particularly in management research (Banerjee, 2022; Connell, 2014; Hamann, Luiz, Amis, Kamaboa, Khan, Dhlamini, & Nilsson, 2020, Morris et al., 2023). This recommendation suggests the value of developing context-specific theory in parallel with systematic borrowing.

Especially, the communal (Simba et al. 2023) and deeply relational nature of African societies (Painter-Morland and Dobie, 2009) must be taken into account by those seeking to develop more inclusive and universal management sciences.

The conference aims to provide academics, policymakers, and practitioners with a valuable forum for discussion and critical analysis of the major issues and challenges that interrelate with Entrepreneurship & Innovation in Africa in all fields of Management Science.

The conference is supported by the Management Consulting Division of the Academy of Management and the East Africa Centre of Nottingham Trent University