MESSAGE FROM AFAM PRESIDENT

September 4, 2021

Dear AFAM Members,

I wished we were done with COVID-19. Unfortunately, we are not! So, I again hope you are keeping safe till we get over this pandemic. As I have been saying you matter so much to yourself, family, school, and AFAM!

In this second newsletter of the year, I am taking the opportunity to update you on what has been happening in AFAM. In April I provided updates on four items: (1) postponement of the biennial conference to January 8-10, 2023, (2) Webinars, (3) CARMA materials, and (4) AFAM partnership with IFSAM.

Regarding the biennial conference, we will begin submission in January 2022. So, may I ask you to begin preparing your papers, PDWs, and symposia. We hope developments in Africa and Egypt will enable us to have an environment that allows for our face-to-face conferences. 

I also want to inform you that we are planning another webinar. Details are forthcoming.

I also want to urge you to take advantage of the CARMA material to enhance your research methodology. Those webcasts are invaluable. It is a privilege for us to be able to assist you with them.  You may also benefit from the CARMA workshops.

As I write this letter, I want to inform you that the Idea Development Work (IDW) of the Academy of Management Review that focuses on the African Experience started yesterday and will continue on Sept 10, 2021. Participation is relatively large and global. There are representations from Asia, Europe, North America, and Africa. AFAM is grateful to the AMR editors for agreeing to organize the workshop to help develop theories that are grounded in the African experience. 

Let me conclude by saying THANK YOU VERY MUCH for your membership and involvement in AFAM. AFAM really cherishes your engagement.  On behalf of the executive team, may I encourage you and your colleagues to be active members of AFAM. It is through active involvement that we can make AFAM a transformative organization. It will be great if you encourage other members to join.

    
     David B. Zoogah, PhD
     President, Africa Academy of Management (AFAM) 

Presidential Address: Embracing the Secular in our ‘Sacred Scholarly World’

In this Address, I reflect on the journey of AFAM with regard to its past, present and future. As a new scholarly community, AFAM is called to the sacred society. Its future therefore should be based on the use of the legitimacy associated with that calling to enact its strategic role – facilitating transformation of African societies – by assuming the paramount duty of parrhesia. As a parrhesiatic organization, AFAM has to engage in value-creating practices through its discourses so that it can endow Africans with the right and ability to speak. These value-creating practices are means by which AFAM moves beyond its sacredness to the secular context of Africa. Unlike other scholarly communities, AFAM does not have the luxury of not ‘unliving’ the African challenge; it has a sacred duty to help provide a different and new living to Africans than the one they are currently experiencing.

Read more: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/23322373.2019.1616987

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