Event Details

This seminar will present a paper that shows how the existence of information asymmetry, organizational inefficiency, and organizational mistrust within universities in Sub-Saharan Africa shape three distinct dimensions of UIC: motives, channels, and outcomes.

With a commitment to foster innovation and economic growth, universities in Sub-Saharan Africa have been encouraged to embrace the various policies and practices promoting university-industry collaboration (UIC) in Europe and North America, including the creation of industry liaison offices. However, to-date, little is known about the most appropriate and effective ways of contextualizing these prescriptive frameworks to the realities of Sub-Saharan Africa, where UIC continues to be perceived as weak, limited, and lacking in formality. Drawing on organizational justice theory and semi-structured interviews with 36 women academics and research scientists in six Sub-Saharan African countries (Kenya, Ghana, Malawi, Botswana, Nigeria and Zambia), this paper shows how addressing problems of equity and fairness within the organizational and relational context can help to improve UIC in Sub-Saharan Africa. Specifically, the paper shows that the subtle culture of exclusion within universities in Sub-Saharan Africa plays a key role in weakening the visionary attempts to foster innovation and economic growth through UIC.