Becoming Intellectual Entrepreneurs : African-American Academic Research in Business Schools

Transcription

1 Becoming Intellectual Entrepreneurs : African-American Academic Research in Business Schools By Jeffrey Robinson Columbia University Graduate School of Business jeffrey.robinson@columbia.edu

2 PREFACE As I walk the streets around my home in Harlem, New York and recognize how it contrasts with the streets and walkways of the neighborhood immediately surrounding Columbia University. It serves as a daily reality check and motivates me to write this paper and to make an impact on my community and the world. May it inspire others to do the same.

3 Academic Excellence and Intellectual Entrepreneurship INTRODUCTION My daily trek from my Harlem neighborhood, across Morningside Park, up the hill and to the ivory tower of academe reminds me that it is my responsibility to make a difference in my community. African American academics must believe the age-old proverb, to whom much is given, much is expected. Our intellectual talents must be exercised for the ultimate good of our community and to the African diaspora. Any efforts that are do not fulfill this mission statement are antithetical to the progress of African people in this country and abroad. There is a tremendous need for Afrocentric scholars in all academic areas to conduct research and pursue careers of relevance to the progress of the diaspora of African peoples. To say that a scholar is Afrocentric is not to say that they only study Africa. It simply means that they have adopted a worldview that has a strong relationship to Africa and African peoples, whether they are in the inner-city of New York or a village outside Accra, Ghana. Until recently, the African diaspora has been ignored in academia. Today, we have many scholars who study the social sciences from a cultural or historical perspective. Unfortunately, business schools and organization studies have not kept pace with the arts and sciences. Therefore, it is the role of the African and African American business scholar to use their talents to give back to the local and global community. How does an academic give back to the community? What special responsibility does an African American professor of business have? This paper begins to uncover one mechanism of giving back to the community and the world. By starting with a theoretical foundation, I will describe how the academic research and careers of African Americans in business school can be

4 used to gain influence in the areas of business, education, politics, public policy and international affairs. The theoretical basis of my discussion is social network theory and is presented in the next section. THE NEED FOR INTELLECTUAL ENTREPRENAURS I am an intellectual entrepreneur Henry Louis Gates, Ph.D. (Black Issues, 1999) Social network theory is an area that has been growing since the mid-1970s. The basic premise is that strong and weak ties between people and organizations structure the playing field for competition and moderate the success and failures of individuals and organizations. (Salancik, 1995; Lincoln, Gerlach, Ahmadjian, 1996; Nohira and Gulati, 1994) This is in contrast to the highly rational or atomistic approach often used by economists. Network theorists believe that strategic decisions (and therefore, competitive dynamics) are determined by the relationships built amongst actors. Ron Burt took these theories a step forward by asking the following question: how does competition work when players have established relations with others? (Burt, 1992) As a result of these links to one another, we uncover the disconnection between groups, organizations and people. He calls each disconnect a structural hole: entrepreneurial opportunities for information access, timing, referrals and control. (Burt 2) What are the implications of Burt s theory for African American academics? Dr. Gates quote about being an intellectual entrepreneur appropriately defines where scholars should be. We need be intellectual entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurs prosper because they see a niche they can occupy or perform some service that is needed better than any one else in the market.

5 What some academics do not realize is that they are subject to the same theories they write about. Academics operate in the world of ideas for most of our careers. Ideas and ideology compete with one another. I contend that to establish a competitive advantage in an academic sense, we must use our social networks to prevail. What is painfully obvious in the top tier of America s business school is a lack of focus on issues relating to Africans here and abroad. Some are just beginning to look at issues of inner-city economic empowerment from the business perspective or the emerging markets of Ghana, Nigeria and South Africa. No one is researching the impact of international development efforts in sub-saharan Africa from an organizational perspective. Therefore, these areas represent structural holes in the world community and in the market of ideas. The structural holes that generate information benefits also generate control benefits, giving certain players an advantage in negotiating their relationships. Sociological theory offers a role describing people who derive control benefits from structural holes. It is the teritus gaudens, the third who benefits: a person who derives benefits from brokering relationships between other players. (Burt 47-48) Our role as academics must first be to span the structural holes that exists in the community of ideas. We already have a cultural relationship to Africa and Africans. Therefore, we must be the ones who move African American and African issues to the mainstream of the business school. Because our social networks can put us in contact with both the academic and the practical world, we must be the brokers of the information that is transferred from one side to the other. Our second role is to influence the public policies that affect African people in this country and throughout the world. It is clear to me that the development of our inner cities and of sub-saharan Africa requires more than just economic empowerment. Economic empowerment must be coupled with political, psychological, educational and spiritual

6 empowerment. This is only possible if information and resources are transferred through the largest conduits possible. Academics can serve as these conduits because we can span the many boundaries that have historically been aligned toward the disadvantage of African people. ACADEMIC ENDEAVORS Our research agenda can not be typical. It can not be mediocre. It can not be un-interesting. It must be exceptional. It must be meaningful and have relevance to the future of our community. For quite some time, Blacks in academe have led the way in cultural studies. In business schools, we have not been so fortunate. While we have put diversity and diversity issues in to the language of managers, we still have a lot of work to do. Diversity related and cross-cultural studies will continue to be important but there are other areas to understand. And because of our unique position as those who can span the boundaries of race, class, culture and experience, we are the ones who must play a central role in the future of the world. We must use our social networks to establish our competitive advantage. As a result we will have access to data that no one else will be able to get. Once we have the data, our robust empirical design and comprehensive qualitative research will not be disputed. At this point, it our responsibility to disseminate this information to the key institutions that make change possible in world so that they may use it for progress: education, business, government, law, and the church. UNCHARTED TERRITORY The largest uncharted territory for African-Americans in business schools is the continent of Africa. Non-western cultural studies have been very Asian-centric. By considering the current theories of the firm and organization science in an African context, we will occupy a niche that can lead to future breakthroughs. Other social scientists have made their way to the great continent: anthropology, political science, international affairs and sociology in particular. But, there have been very few attempts

7 to make sense of the organizational environment or strategic management issues that may be specific to parts of Africa. Today with the emerging middle classes in South Africa and Ghana, and the successes of Africa s 13 equity markets, the world is coming to Africa once again. How should will the political economy of the countries in Africa be impacted by the democratic and economic reforms? As we enter the 21 st century, we recognize that there are no unifying theories of regional development or business organizations that apply to the future of the continent of Africa and this reveals that there is a need for research. The complexities of the African continent warrant study from people who will respect the land and the people they study. Engagement with the cultural and historic roots will be a necessary component of any research effort. Who better to explore it than African Americans in academe? CONCLUSION In this paper, I have described the role of African Americans in academe through the use of social networks theory. It is clear that that the type of comprehensive changes that are necessary in the United States and abroad will come about only if creative and intelligent boundary spanners are the agents of change. This must always be our mission.

8 REFERENCES Black Issues in Higher Education. Interview with Dr. Henry Louis Gates Jr. Volume 15, Number 25 (Feb 4), Burt, R.S Structural Holes: The social structure of competition. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Lincoln, James, Michael Gerlach, and Christina Ahmadjian Kiretsu Networks and Corporate Performance in Japan. American Sociological Review, 61: Nohira, Nittin and Ranjay Gulati. Firms and their environments. Handbook of Economic Sociology. Neil Smelser and Richard Swedberg, editors. Princeton: Sage Publications, Salancik, Gerald Wanted: A good network theory of organization. Administrative Science Quarterly, 40: