Innovation and Agility in the Digital Age

Africa is a laboratory for managerial and societal innovations built out of pragmatic arrangements. Some African companies offer products and services that go beyond the standard practices of their international counterparts, based on original and inventive managerial characteristics. Such success stories outline a new model of management and innovation for companies in the digital era. The African innovations that have emerged over the past ten years are directly linked to a managerial model that perfectly meets the demands of the digital era. These new organizations indicate that good managerial practices and innovation models also come from the Global South and no longer exclusively from the East Coast of the United States. Understanding these dynamics is of great theoretical and practical interest for the many companies struggling to seize the opportunities for growth in Africa.

Auteur
Soufyane Frimousse is a Lecturer in Management Science at the University of Corsica and a Research Associate at the ESSEC Business School in Paris. He is Deputy Editor of the magazine Questions de Management and is a regular contributor to several collective works and many French and international academic and professional journals.

Contenu

Foreword vii

Introduction xiii

Chapter 1 Disrupters, Breadcrumbs and the Managerial Revolution 1

1.1 Digital disruptions of management 3

1.2 New and fundamental insights 8

1.3 From pyramid to platform 10

1.4 Motivation by profit and especially by purpose 11

Chapter 2 The African Continent: Laboratory Tomorrow's World 15

2.1 The frog's leap, the leopard's run and agility 16

2.2 Rebel talents and serial learners in dynamic rootedness 26

2.3 Rooted leaders/entrepreneurs, adventurers and hustlers at the service of African singularities 30

2.4 An African citizen educated and trained to think within organizations, who can speak and must be listened to 49

Chapter 3 The Mediterranean: Marrying the Future without Divorcing the Past 59

3.1 The Mediterranean: crossroads of civilizations, one-way street or dead-end street 61

3.2 Drawing from the Mediterranean thanks to people of transposition 74

3.3 Neither adoration, nor submission, but self-realization 94

3.4 Zones of fertility in layer-cake societies 115

Conclusion 129

Postface 131

References 137

Index 149