The growing interest in Africa as well as concerns about negative deviant behaviors and ethnic structures necessitates examination of the effect of ethnic expectations on behavior of employees. In this study we leverage insight from ethnos oblige theory to propose that centralization of ethnic norms moderates the relationship between benevolence expectations and negative deviant behavior. Using a cross-sectional design and data from two countries as well as moderation and cross-cultural analytic techniques, we find support for three-way interactions where the relationship (...) between benevolence and negative deviant behavior is moderated by centralization and culture. We discuss the implications of the findings which support the dynamic perspective of management in Africa. (shrink)

This article highlights the long accomplishments of Claude Sumner, S.J. in the field of African philosophy. During his lifetime he published over 33 books and 184 articles. He lived and worked in Ethiopia for 44 years. He translated into English and analysed several key historical works in Ethiopian philosophy, written originally in Ge’ez. He argued that modern rationalist philosophy began in Africa with Zera Yacob at the same time that it began in France with Descartes. He then set to work (...) recording and analyzing oral philosophical sources found in proverbs and songs. He theorized on the definitions of philosophy and the methods to explore philosophy found in different sources. (shrink)

In recent years a growing body of literature on the ethics of care has made significant contributions to understanding the multiple dimensions of care. Feminist theories provide the resource for this interdisciplinary research in which there has been scant attention given to black women's approaches to moral deliberations and understandings of care. Although there are differing interests and diversity among black women, this article seeks to disrupt current frameworks surrounding the ethics of care and discusses a more relevant conceptual framework (...) to bring diverse perspectives to bear in the current wave of interest in caring. By applying black feminist thought to the complexities of black womanhood in the broader society, this paper considers cultural antecedents and lived experiences as a starting point for ethical concerns in reclaiming the everyday world as self-defined by black women themselves to open up new insights into care and its multiple dimensions. (shrink)

This article is an introduction to an ancient Egyptian text called The Tale of the Eloquent Peasant and an argument that it ought to be seen as a classic of political philosophy. After contextualizing the tale as part of a tradition of moral and political philosophy in ancient Egypt, I explore the methods by which the text defines the proper roles of political authority and contrast its approach to justifying political authority with the argument from the state of nature so (...) common in modern Western political philosophy. I claim that the tale's argument from dysfunction anticipates the move in contemporary Western political philosophy towards privileging non-ideal over ideal theory. I discuss challenges in translating the key term in the tale – ma'at – in light of the fact that it can be taken to mean ‘justice’ and/or ‘truth’. Finally, I discuss how the irony at the heart of its narrative can lead us to interpret the tale as having either conservative or revolutionary implications for the political system it depicts. (shrink)

Highlights of Claude Sumner's lifelong accomplishments in the field of Ethiopian philosophy.