About This Project

Ask the Scientists

What is the context of this research?

The goal of the project is to research methods for improving the efficiency and effectiveness of personnel development in African organizations. The following project is a partnership between two graduate students, Gebeyehu (Geb) from Ethiopia who is a graduate student at the University of Valencia, Spain and Tom from the United States who is a graduate student at Florida Institute of Technology. Our research project is the result of a large scale organizational development failure in Ethiopia. The Business Process Re-engineering (BPR) project sought to implement the best practices of western organizations into Ethiopian contexts in order to improve productivity and the economy. Unfortunately, the human aspects of the change process were ignored and the implemented changes were highly resisted, which led ultimately to the failure of the multi-million dollar public investment.

The goal of our research is to understand which organizational processes will be effective and ineffective in gaining support based on the cultural values found in Ethiopia. This will require understanding: (1) the social structures of organizations within Ethiopia; (2) how to overcome resistance to change; and (3) the types of organizational processes will work in concert with Ethiopian cultural values to promote employee development, motivation and well-being.

What is the significance of this project?

For developing nations one of the greatest challenges is increasing their human capital and maintaining the productivity of their work forces. However attempts to implement best practices from more developed economies often fail due to their clash with local cultural norms and values. There is an increasing sense that development aid to African Nations has diminishing returns because it does not lead to self-sufficiency. Our research will identify methods for improving the performance of state, not-for-profit, and private organizations in Ethiopia through more effective Human Resources Management practices. It is likely that the results of our research will also apply to similar cultures and could lead to new innovative practices in developing economies.

Additionally, you will be supporting international collaborative research by providing the opportunity for academics to partner from Ethiopia and the United States. By promoting partnerships it will offer future opportunities for collaboration and for the sharing of unique insights between members of the different nations.

What are the goals of the project?

The funding will allow Geb and Tom to start what will be a growing line of research. There are three components to our research.

1) Interview leaders regarding the norms, challenges, and areas of improvement in Ethiopian organizations.

2) Gather employee questionnaire data from employees in the US and Ethiopia to understand the responses to different organizational practices including views on leadership, justice, trust, employee development, compensation, and motivation.

3) Perform experiments with business students in Ethiopia and the United States to test theories of motivation and decision-making commonly adopted in Western contexts in order to identify which practices differ between the nations.