Africa Journal of Management: A decade in the making

We have witnessed a lot over the past decade. The Africa Journal of Management (AJOM) has gone from a vision in the collective minds of the Africa Academy of Management (AFAM) Executive Committee in 2014 (Nkomo et al., 2015) to an established reality in 2024. The journal is abstracted and indexed in Scopus and the Chartered Association of Business Schools UK (ABS Guide). At the time of writing, AJOM has had over 34,000 downloads from a global audience, an impact factor of 1.3, and an acceptance rate of 6 percent. While we have higher goals for the future, we are pleased to be where we are and are extremely grateful for all the support we have received from AFAM, our editorial teams, editorial review boards, authors, and readers. Please let us tell our story of how we got here and where we are headed.

The name of the first journal of AFAM and its Founding Editor, Moses Kiggundu, were announced at the AFAM conference in Gaborone, Botswana in 2014. Moses met Bruce Lamont, the first Senior Associate Editor of the journal, at the announcement ceremony. Moses took Bruce up on his offer to help launch the new journal. In the beginning, Moses had a very clear vision of what the journal would become and the types of articles it would publish. But that was about it (Lamont & Kiggundu, 2015). There was no editorial team, review board, journal submission and paper processing system (i.e., Editorial Manager), or, most importantly, anyone even remotely thinking about submitting papers. So, the first few years involved what Baker and Nelson (2005) describe as bricolage, or the creation of something from nothing! But the entrepreneurial editorial duo was able to convince some super colleagues, Lena Zander (Uppsala University), Christopher Porter (Indiana University), Constant Beugré (Delaware State University) and Amon Chizema (Loughborough University) to join them as Associate Editors. They also coaxed several others to buy into the vision and join as Editorial Review Board members. The Aims and Scope of the journal were written. The systems and templates for the journal were created in Editorial Manager. And a strong contingent of established authors was coaxed to submit their best work for publication consideration to this journal that didn’t quite exist. Hermann Ndofor joined the editorial team in 2016 as we needed more help with strategy and entrepreneurship papers, which were the majority of the submissions in the early years.

By 2019, we began to get our feet planted. The journal was viewed as a legitimate quality outlet for management research about and for the African context (Lamont & Kiggundu, 2020). Where we’d had 53, mostly solicited, submissions in our first year, we had grown to 160 unsolicited submissions in 2019. And we were fortunate to be able to expand our editorial team to include Toyah Miller (University of Texas-Dallas), Sam Aryee (Surrey University) and Vincent Bagire (Makerere University) to handle the increased volume. We received our first two-star rating from the Academic Journal Guide. We were so proud of the progress.

As we enter our tenth year of publication, we believe our vision is now an established reality. We have consistently received over 250 unsolicited submissions over the last three years. We completed our first editor transition in 2021, where Bruce Lamont moved into the Editor-in-Chief role and Hermann Ndofor became the Senior Associate Editor. We also significantly expanded our editorial team to better serve our authors. AJOM has matured into a bigger tent for management scholars with papers in international business, supply chain, sustainability, organizational behavior, leadership, human resource management, entrepreneurship, and strategy. We now have twelve Associate Editors to cover the expanded range of topics and to continue our tradition of providing developmental feedback to our authors. Our current editorial team includes Angela Hall (Michigan State University), Nathaniel Boso (KNUST), Samuel Aryee (Surrey University), Rebecca Namatovu (Copenhagen Business School), Frances Fabian (University of Memphis), Amanuel Tekleab (Wayne State University), Michael Abebe (University of Texas, Rio Grande Valley), Nasima Carrim (University of Pretoria), Joerg Hoffstetter (Kedge Business School), David Littlewood (University of Sheffield), Lilac Nachum (City University of New York) and Kenneth Amaeshi (University of Edinburgh). What a wonderful team from twelve different universities across six countries and three continents.

One way to trace the evolution of the journal is by focusing on the most downloaded articles for each year. In our first three years, the most downloaded articles were what we called Insights articles, or communications about the African context to researchers and practitioners within and beyond the continent. The article by Amaeshi and Idemudia (2015) presented the concept of Africapitalism, where the private sector commits to the socioeconomic development of Africa, and what it means for management research. The most read paper in 2016 was by DeGhetto, Gray and Kiggundu (2016). They presented the African Union’s Agenda 2063 and the promise that it holds for both Africa and management research. And the article by Ndemo and Weiss (2017), our most read article to date with over 14,000 downloads, was also contextual. They focused on the emerging digital transformation in Kenya and other parts of Africa and how it may unfold in the future. In the early years, AJOM’s contribution was mainly in describing interesting developments in Africa to management audiences around the world.

The most viewed articles from 2018 through 2023, however, shifted in focus to research articles. Three of these were part of Special Issues. The Special Issues were on critically important aspects in Africa: the informal economy (Mhando & Kiggundu, 2018), Africa-China engagement (Kamoche et al., 2021), and sustainability and global value chains (Hofstetter et al., 2022). AJOM has so far published 11 Special Issues. The papers in these Special Issues continued the communication of interesting aspects of the African context that was contained in the earlier years, but with much more attention to research on the topics. The other popular papers in recent years have all been focused research contributions. The paper by David-West et al. (2019) examined mobile money as a frugal innovation for financial services in select African countries (Gabon, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zambia). Using data on prices for services, the number of financial access points, and account growth for mobile money and traditional banks, they show that mobile money addresses affordability constraints, resource constraints, and institutional voids in these countries. Musara and Nieuwenhuizen (2020) use case studies to develop a multi-level model of the emergence of entrepreneurial leadership in the informal sector in South Africa. And the recent article by Alo (2023) documents the processes by which supermarket store managers use ambidextrous leadership to develop team level ambidexterity, management issues found important in the African context. The growing research focus exemplifies the increased rigor and evolution of the journal over the past decade.

We’ve had some wonderful support from Taylor and Francis over the years. While all of the Taylor and Francis team have helped booster the readership and scholarship in AJOM, four deserve special mention. James Clever, as our Managing Editor, was indispensable in getting us organized and overcoming publication hurdles in the early years. Eleanor (Ella) Reinders took over from James and has been a bedrock of support for many years (Lamont & Kiggundu, 2020). She has always found ways to address our needs and promote the journal. Ella was instrumental in removing the page restrictions for each volume. We’d also like to thank ElisaBeth Alexis who “filled in” for Ella during her maternity leaves. A more helpful and responsive professional would be hard to imagine. And we would certainly be remiss in not mentioning the contributions of Peter Lague to AJOM. Peter keeps us on schedule and handles the production and editing of every paper published in the journal. And he has been with us since the very beginning. We don’t always hand him the prettiest versions of papers, but he has always managed to make them look their very best before going online or in print. Ella and Peter have become central to our AJOM family.

We see a bright future ahead for AJOM. With the strongest editorial team to date in place and the quality of submissions increasing each year, we think our rankings and impact statistics can only go up. We are planning a special issue on review articles within the next two years. And we believe we will be able to build a backlog of accepted papers within the next few years as well. Both these steps should elevate our standing. But our goal will always remain the same: to be the premier outlet for management research about and for Africa. We look forward to the next decade of AJOM!

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Bruce T. Lamont

Bruce T. Lamont is the Jim Moran Eminent Scholar of Business Administration and Chairperson of the Department of Management in the College of Business at Florida State University. His research has been published in such outlets as the Academy of Management Journal, Academy of Management Review, Africa Academy of Management Journal, Global Strategy Journal, Journal of Business Ethics, Journal of International Business Studies, Journal of Management, Journal of Management Studies, Journal of World Business, and Strategic Management Journal. He currently serves on the editorial review boards of the Journal of Management Studies and Strategic Management Journal and as Editor-in-Chief of the Africa Journal of Management. He has also served on the editorial review boards of the Academy of Management Journal and the Journal of Management. His current research addresses the effective management of acquisition integration processes, knowledge investments, international business, and novel applications and extensions of theory to the African context.

Hermann A. Ndofor

Hermann A. Ndofor is currently a faculty member at the Kelley School of Business, Indiana University, Senior Associate Editor for the Africa Journal of Management and Associate Editor for the Journal of Management. He is a Templeton Fellow in the Africa Program at the Foreign Policy Research Institute. Dr. Ndofor received a Ph.D. in Management from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Prior to joining the Kelley School of Business in 2015, he was on the faculty at the Mays Business School, Texas A&M. His research interests include competitive dynamics, resource management, Top Management Teams, and entrepreneurship, with specific interest in Africa. His research has been published in a range of journals including the Strategic Management Journal, Journal of Management, IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management, Business Ethics Quarterly, Journal of Managerial Issues, Journal of Management Inquiry, Long Range Planning, and Leadership Quarterly. He also currently serves on the editorial review boards of Strategic Management Journal, and Management and Organization Review.

Moses N. Kiggundu

Moses N. Kiggundu is a Professor Emeritus and Distinguished Research Professor of Management and International Business at the Sprott School of Business. Dr. Kiggundu’s career is focused on advancing management scholarship in and about Africa and globally through research, education, policy, practice, and service. He is founding editor of the Africa Journal of Management. He also serves as an advisor and member of the Strategic Studies Group for the African Capacity Building Foundation. He was the inaugural recipient of the Emerald and Africa Academy of Management Trailblazer Award for advancing management scholarship in 2011. Dr. Kiggundu served as member of the Editorial Boards of the Academy of Management Review and the International Journal of Cross Cultural Management. He works with and mentors doctoral and graduate students and faculty pursuing research in advancing management scholarship in and about Africa. He is currently working with students and faculty at universities in North America and Africa. His work also examines development issues related to China and Africa, as well as Canada and Africa. Dr. Kiggundu works with African organizations in the public and private sectors, as well NGOs, on various issues of development.