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Less than 10 years ago, management scholars would not have considered doing research on and in Africa as a serious if not reasonable academic endeavor. Things have recently changed since the establishment of the Africa Academy of Management in 2011 and the creation of the Africa Journal of Management in 2015. In 2015, the Academy of Management Perspectives published a series of articles on management in Africa. Hence, the present Academy of Management symposium builds on this series of articles to explore ways of making meaningful management research in and on Africa. This is important because management scholarship in Africa should not be a mere replica of what has been done in the West. Rather, it should provide new knowledge to management as an academic discipline and inform management practice. Such scholarship should avoid the common trap of 'because this has never been done in Africa' therefore it should be done It is not because something has never been done somewhere that it should be done. The right thing should be that it is done because it is important and meaningful. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Editorial contributions from top management journals, in concert with recent calls for action from leading scholars in the field of strategy, entrepreneurship and institutional theory, have repeatedly underlined the importance of considering new market contexts for research. In particular, emerging and developing economies are mentioned as a fertile research ground for management scholars to test and extend extant theories in addition to developing new theory. In this symposium we bring scholars from different fields together who, having heard the call, have ventured into the international arena. Panelists will share their experience and strategies in becoming enmeshed and maneuvering the research context as well as the domestic academic infrastructure. In particular, the symposium will establish distinguishing characteristics between the role of the researcher in emerging and developing countries as opposed to the researcher's role in North-America and Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]