Family businesses are very important to every economy in the world.  Research has shown that most micro, small and medium-sized enterprises in the world are family businesses.  Consequently, the last twenty-five years has seen a tremendous surge in interest in family business research in the management field. Despite this burst in family business research globally, the quantity of research focusing on Africa is insignificant. Thus, there is a dearth of knowledge on family businesses in Africa, despite their prevalence in the economies of the countries on the continent. This presentation reviews and assesses the literature on family businesses in Africa with special emphasis on what has been studied and what the studies tell us about the state of family businesses. I conduct a content analysis of family business studies in Africa that were published in peer-reviewed journals. The findings will enable us to take stock of the quality and quantity of family business research in Africa which are critical in encouraging knowledge creation and generation on the continent.

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Moses Acquaah Bio

Dr. Moses Acquaah is a Professor and Director of the PhD program in Business Administration and former Head of the Department of Management in the Bryan School of Business and Economics, University of North Carolina at Greensboro (UNCG), and a Carnegie African Diaspora Fellow. Dr. Acquaah received his PhD in Organizations and Strategic Management from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, USA. He has an MA in Economics and an MBA from Simon Fraser University, Canada, a Post-Graduate Diploma in Development Studies from the University of Cambridge, UK, and a BA in Social Sciences (Economics and Geography) from the University of Science and Technology, Ghana. His current research focuses on strategic management, international management, sustainability, entrepreneurship, and family businesses in emerging economies.  

Dr. Acquaah has published over 80 articles in several internationally recognized journals, conference proceedings and book chapters. Some of the journals include the Strategic Management Journal, Human Relations, Journal of Business Research, Strategic Organization, Journal of International Management, International Journal of Production Economics, International Journal of Production Research, Journal of Cleaner Production, International Business Review, Journal of Managerial Psychology, Africa Journal of Management and Journal of Family Business Strategy.  

He is the President of the Africa Academy of Management (AFAM), the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of African Business, Associate Editor at the Journal of Business Research, and a Consulting Editor at the Journal of Comparative International Management.  Dr. Acquaah is the Editor of the one of the foremost books on family business in Africa entitled, Family Businesses in Sub-Saharan Africa: Behavioral and Strategic Perspectives published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2016. He serves on the Editorial Review Boards of several journals.  

Dr. Acquaah’s work has won competitive research grants from organizations such as the Marion Ewing Kauffman Foundation, USA; the Family Owned Business Institute (FOBI), USA; Emerald Publishing Group, U.K.; and the Network for Business Sustainability, South Africa. Dr. Acquaah also served as the Vice-President for Membership, Academy of African Business and Development (AABD), from 2011-2016, and the Vice President and Treasurer of the Africa Academy of Management (AFAM). He was the Academy of Management’s Strategic Management (formerly Business Policy and Strategy) Division’s Global Representative for Africa from 2011-2013.