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In March 2012, Gap entered the South African market, but with a different pricing strategy to the one followed in the USA. While the brand is known as an affordable clothing brand in the USA, its goods were priced substantially higher in South Africa than in the USA. The same Gap T-shirt sold for $16 in the USA was being sold at $40 in South Africa. The positioning of the Gap brand as a luxury brand in the South African market suggests that what constitutes a luxury brand is not the same across global markets. This paper explores whether this mode of market entry is a sustainable business model or if the mode of entry is only viable for short-term success. In pursuing this line of thinking, the concept of the opportunistic luxury brand is presented. An opportunistic luxury brand is defined as a brand that is not normally known as a luxury brand in other markets (i.e. other countries) and is adopting a luxury brand positioning in a particular market. This paper develops and offers a research agenda for luxury brands in emerging markets., QC 20220615

Three papers are briefly presented (outlines below) that use descriptive statistics and bibliometric analysis. The presentations focus on the techniques and tools utilized, as well as the findings of the studies. The presentations include an opportunity for questions., QC 20220701

The amount of data from which organizational and consumer insights can be drawn is vast and increasing. Yet, the type of data that is becoming more rampant, for example, from social media, is changing to include text, images, and video. Consequently, new methods and techniques for analysis are emerging and producing fruitful insights. Yet, marketing practitioners and researchers still focus on traditional analyses from experimental or survey techniques. This paper breaks down content analysis into its theoretical underpinnings in order to shed light on its foundation as it pertains to marketing theory and practice. We draw upon Hart’s theory of word choice and verbal tone to show how content analysis can be used in a variety of marketing research and strategy phenomena, both at the individual and organizational levels. Aligning with Hart’s dimensions and calculated variables, which make up the theoretical foundation of DICTION, we present a number of applicable areas in marketing where content analysis can provide exceptional results. The theoretical framework proposed in this paper underscores the potential for content analysis as a viable marketing research and strategy tool for organizations., Part of book: ISBN 978-3-319-68749-0QC 20220622

This paper explores the premise whether sophisticated algorithms that drive curatorship of content for consumers consider a symbolic interactionist perspective on consumer desire for content and whether content offerings, personalisation and the consequent shaping of curatorship algorithms can be based on such an understanding. Curatorship of online content, whether this be product or information based, drives value, consumer engagement and profitability. Curatorship and recommender systems also deliver a personalised experience of the product or services. A review of the reasoning behind such systems reveals that most follow an empirical perspective, namely, the use of statistical tools and information systems algorithms on a behavioural dataset. A theoretically driven approach appears to be lacking. This paper seeks a theoretical approach to online content curatorship embedded in symbolic interactionism. In addition, it seeks to tease out the approach to one that embraces both notions of content curation based on similarity but also on a desire for difference and change. The paper looks at symbolic interactionism in the context of social and individual selves, its role in collaborative filtering, advances a set of propositions for a curation and collaborative filtering model and ends with the possible implications for marketing., Part of book: ISBN 978-3-319-66022-6QC 20220621

Compared to the relative importance of icewine for the Canadian wine industry and the uniqueness of the product in the luxury wine and spirit segment, little attention has been paid to the marketing mix used by its producers. As a first step in addressing this gap, Paschen et al. (2016) developed a modified aesthetics and ontology framework to classify consumers of luxury wines and spirits with a focus on icewine. The framework separates the novice and the expert in the aesthetic dimension, while it distinguishes between transience and endurance in the ontology dimension. Working from these two dimensions, four distinct consumer groups have been identified: Carousers are novices on the aesthetics scale, while the ontological mode emphasizes the transient. Cabinet collectors are also novices, but the ontological mode emphasizes enduring. In contrast to the two preceding types, the connoisseur is an expert and a true consumer whose behavior emphasizes the transient. Finally, the cellar collector is an expert where the ontological mode emphasizes enduring. The current paper examines where icewine producers place consumers within this typology. Using semi-structured interviews led with representatives of five icewine producers, the authors gathered information on production, product range, positioning, and consumers. The interviews uncovered remarkably homogenous approaches to positioning and marketing icewine. Most purchasers were regarded as novices. With duty free as the predominant sales channel and on-site winery experiences a secondary channel, only limited efforts to address or create experts were discovered. The ontological dimension of the typology was defined by icewine’s changes through cellaring, making the predominant customer group the “carouser.” The marketing mix used was also similar between the different brands. Product variances uncovered were comparatively minor, with very similar price points and packaging approaches. This one-dimensional marketing, QC 20220622Part of proceedings: ISBN 978-3-319-66023-3

Group service encounters, when multiple customers are intentionally batched and involved in the delivery and consumption of a service, are common in tourism and hospitality, recreation, and education. In such service settings, customers will accept, expect, and sometimes even desire to share and consume the service experience “with” other customers. Thus, in group service encounters, customer-to-customer interactions are often integral to the service being provided. While previous research has largely examined services that take place between a single customer and a service employee or where customers consume “in the presence of” other customers, the topic of consuming “with” other customers has not been fully explored. This theory development paper focuses on understanding how the characteristics of the group itself impacts how group service encounters should be designed and delivered. This paper introduces the concept of customer cohort climates (CCCs) and explores how CCCs vary and the implications for the design of group service encounters. To understand how CCCs vary, we focus on two fundamental dimensions: why consumers participate in a group service encounter and how they interact with each other. More specifically, we develop a typology that shows how CCCs vary according to whether the service employee or the customer is the protagonist that initiates customer-to-customer interactions and customers’ hedonic or utilitarian motivation., Part of book: ISBN 978-3-319-66022-6QC 20220621

In this paper, the authors demonstrate how IBM Watson, a super computer that uses artificial intelligence (AI), can be used in academic and managerial research. A brief description of how Watson originated and operates is followed by four examples of how Watson can be used in academic marketing research. The first two examples use Watson’s personality and insight services to analyze qualitative depth interviews. The last two examples use Watson’s emotion and sentiment analysis on textual data and qualitative depth interviews. These examples emphasize the value of Watson in the age of big data and its ability to analyze issues that would otherwise be too complex. The paper concludes with limitations, managerial implications, and future research., Part of book: ISBN 978-3-319-99180-1QC 20220621

Extant literature indicates that accessing online word of mouth (eWOM) impacts subsequent purchasing and other consumer behaviors (Chatterjee 2001; Chen et al. 2011; Teng et al. 2017). Specifically, in the context of the sharing economy, which is still relatively new to some consumers, the reviews are of increasing importance as there are few traditional indicators of service quality (Ert et al. 2016). Gretzel and Yoo (2008) observe that online reviews may contain information pertaining to the quality of a service or product, which could assist in reducing risk when purchasing experience goods. However, in the case of the travel industry, it has been observed that on average satisfaction ratings for Airbnb listings are higher than satisfaction ratings of hotel listings on TripAdvisor (Zervas et al. 2015). In this paper, we review and reason on a set of key factors which may drive this gap in rating averages. In particular six propositions are developed from the relevant literature and are organized into three groupings: expectations, experiences, and evaluation. With regard to expectations, two propositions are developed relating to price anchoring (Kahneman et al. 1982) from hotel rates during the search phase and the uncertainty surrounding the anticipation of staying in the home of a stranger. This first set of propositions suggests travelers reduce their expectations of an upcoming Airbnb stay due to the comparatively low price. The second set of propositions concern the experience specific to Airbnb that would lead to surprisingly positive experiences of an Airbnb stay itself, such as accessing local wisdom from and socially interacting with Airbnb hosts (Week 2012). The last set of two propositions relate to evaluating the experience of an Airbnb stay. The first proposition is specific to an Airbnb stay in that the previous reviews may increase the chance of the anchoring bias taking effect in the review and rating process. Whereas, the second proposition sugg, Part of book: ISBN 978-3-319-99180-1QC 20220621

Identifying the traits of the successful salesperson has long been a challenge to both sales practitioners and marketing scholars. The costs of poor recruiting, selection, and hiring decisions are considerable, and so ideally, firms would like to be able to identify as quickly and as effectively as possible what makes a high-performing salesperson. This is especially true in B2B environments, where personal selling is still a very important part of a firm’s marketing communication mix. A number of tools, including personality analysis, have been used over the years to attempt to identify the traits of the successful sales performer. This paper describes a study in which the text from depth interviews with a sample of salespersons in a B2B environment was subjected to content analysis using IBM’s Watson software to produce personality profiles of the individual salespersons. The salespersons could then be segmented into different groups, depending on their personality traits. The limitations are acknowledged, managerial implications discussed, and avenues for future research identified., Part of proceeding: ISBN 978-3-319-66022-6QC 20220621

This paper examines how Minority Influence Theory, originally from Social Psychology Literature, can be used in marketing strategy to aid brand differentiation. More specifically, it looks at a set of criteria for brands to evaluate prior to aligning themselves with controversial topics for differentiation purposes. It assesses the role of strategic brand management, using Minority Influence Theory, and suggests conditions for aligning a brand with a controversial issue successfully. This paper presents three propositions for practitioners and researchers to explore with respect to Minority Influence Theory. These are: Proposition #1 The consistency and confidence of the cause affects the likelihood of the brand benefiting from aligning with it. (a) The greater the consistency and confidence of the issue, the increased likelihood the brand will benefit from aligning. (b) The lesser the consistency and confidence of the issue, the decreased likelihood the brand will benefit from aligning. Proposition #2 The flexibility of the cause affects the likelihood of the brand benefiting from aligning with it. (a) The greater the flexibility of the issue, the increased likelihood the brand will benefit from aligning. (b) The less flexible the issue, the decreased likelihood the brand will benefit from aligning. Proposition #3 The authenticity of the brand/spokesperson to speak to the particular issue affects the likelihood of the brand benefiting from aligning with it. (a) The greater the authenticity of the brand/spokesperson to speak to a particular issue, the increased likelihood of the brand benefiting from aligning. (b) The lesser the authenticity of the brand/spokesperson to speak to a particular issue, the decreased likelihood of the brand benefitting from aligning. The case studies present examples of positive outcomes of successful alignment as well as a case where the brand was not successful. By carefully considering the framework presented, managers can determine w, Part of proceedings: ISBN 978-3-319-66022-6QC 20220621

Developing theoretical contributions in marketing is challenging for any scholar but can be particularly difficult for doctoral students or recent graduates. Many marketing academics have received reviews of articles they submitted to scholarly marketing journals only to find their work rejected or required to undergo revisions because of issues related to theory. Given the often incremental nature of theory contributions, it is difficult to understand what the threshold is for a clear and sufficient theoretical contribution in the marketing discipline. Our paper aims to address this challenge by elucidating what, exactly, a theoretical contribution in marketing is, in addition to offering practical advice to new and established marketing scholars on how to develop it. In doing so, our work provides two contributions: First, we outline why theoretical contributions are difficult to develop in general and especially in marketing. To further elucidate how to overcome these challenges, we showcase three exemplary papers that have advanced marketing theory and highlight elements of these contributions that make them so valuable. Second, our manuscript provides guidelines for authors regarding theoretical sufficiency and significance of their work that authors can consult prior to submitting their work to an academic journal for peer review., Part of book: ISBN 978-3-319-66022-6QC 20220622

This paper investigates the income return to entrepreneurship and wage employment by means of Lazear's model of occupational choice. The paper has two major aims. The first is to develop a new theoretical framework for analyzing the income return to entrepreneurship by combining the Lazear model with the assumption that the skill profiles in a population are Frechet-distributed. The second is to demonstrate that the resulting theoretical derivations can be used for a new type of regional analysis of the income return to entrepreneurship and wage employment. The empirical analysis is based on data for individuals with a Master of Science degree in Electrical Engineering. We compute their income return to self-employment and wage employment in three parts of Sweden: the Stockholm region, the combined Gothenburg and Malmo region, and the Rest of Sweden. The results show that the average return to self-employment is less than 5% in all regions and smaller in the Gothenburg and Malmo region than in the other two regions. The regional differences are explained by the differential supply curves and market values of entrepreneurial talent. The theoretical derivation of the income return to entrepreneurship is the main contribution of the paper. Another contribution is the derivation of regional supply curves for entrepreneurs., QC 20210520

Consumers seek out other consumers’ input to facilitate and remove some of the ambiguity and risk from the purchase decision-making process through online word of mouth (eWOM) (Sparks and Browning 2011). This makes consumer reviews important for anyone seeking to sell products and services both inside and outside the sharing economy. The eWOM literature largely focuses on review authenticity and credibility from the point of view of fake online reviews (i.e., astroturfing), such as reviews created by business owners or generated using artificial intelligence (c.f. Castillo et al. 2013) or the deletion of negative reviews (c.f. Bamman et al. 2012). However, there is scant attention given to customer reviews and ratings that do not reflect customers’ true opinions and feelings of their experience. For example, consider ridesharing services, such as Uber and Lyft, where consumers have little knowledge outside of the numerical evaluation ratings other customers give their drivers. On these platforms, researchers have observed rating inflation where customers give drivers top marks even when things go wrong and expectations are not met (Cook 2015; Etzioni 2017). This pattern of rating inflation exists in other sharing economy contexts as well including, notably, the accommodation sharing industry (Zervas et al. 2015, 2014). This article proposes that customers perceive an organization’s own market label by processing marketing positioning information, such as those found on websites. A market label is a metaphoric word or phrase that expresses an organization’s identity and constructs relationships between the organization and other stakeholders. This paper examines whether the customer reviews and the sentiment within them corresponds to how an organization positions or presents itself in the marketplace. Specifically, we introduce the professional and amateur market labels and analyze the impact of the organization’s sales pitches. References Available Upon Request, QC 20220627Part of book: ISBN 978-3-030-02568-7

This paper looks at brand engagement in the context of employees and B2B firms, two areas that are largely overlooked in the extant brand engagement literature. Using the results from a large-scale study of employee brand engagement in social media, two key drivers of employee brand engagement are identified using the content analysis tool, DICTION, namely, optimism and commonality. Employees of top-ranked and top-rated firms express higher levels of optimism and commonality in their reviews of their employers on social media. This allows the construction of a 2 × 2 matrix that allows managers to diagnose strategies for increasing or improving employee brand engagement. This creates four different kinds of employee brand engagement situations and offers human resource and marketing managers different strategies in each case. This paper demonstrates how practitioners and scholars can shed new light on how stakeholders engage with brands. References Available Upon Request, Part of book: ISBN 978-3-030-02567-0QC 20220614

This paper explores the influence of friendship on the relationship between heuristics and biases on decision-making within entrepreneurial founding teams. The research question builds on the recognition that better decision-making promotes venture success. The entrepreneurial environment is characterized by high levels of complexity, ambiguity, and time constraints. By employing heuristic shortcuts, the mind is able to attend to a vastly larger number of decisions in a given space of time than if it were to consciously and deliberately evaluate each and every alternative in the decision-making process. While extant literature in entrepreneurship has begun to focus on the role that heuristics and biases play in shaping the decisions that entrepreneurial teams make, most research has focused on the individual entrepreneur. However, large portion of ventures are founded and led by teams rather than by individuals. Further, most of the literature available on the nature of the entrepreneurial team focuses on how the team functions once it has been established or how a team within a company possesses degrees of entrepreneurial orientation. This paper is concerned with friendship as it pertains to the practical application of entrepreneurial founding teams whose friendship precedes the venture and did not begin for the purpose of starting the venture. Friendship may have both negative and positive implications for the founding and operation of the entrepreneurial venture, providing for both strengths and weaknesses in the organization. This paper develops a number of researchable propositions, which can be tested and then either accepted, rejected, or extended in empirical work. The methodology connects characteristics of friendship from extant literature to a series of previously identified bias groups which can logically be expected to influence decision-making classified within previously identified stages of entrepreneurial venture development. The product of this wo, Part of book: ISBN 978-3-030-02567-0QC 20220614

From a consumer marketing perspective, undergoing any surgical procedure is, for the average individual, a “credence” good, those which the quality cannot be ascertained through search, and cannot even be realistically judged after their purchase and consumption (Darby and Karni 1973). MedcineNet is a website containing detailed articles on different medical conditions and diseases as well as detailed articles on various medical procedures like knee replacements, C-sections and colonoscopies. A patient comments section is available on many of these articles that contain comments from patients who have undergone a similar procedure to read. For many perspective patients, the patient comments section may be comforting to read as they prepare for their own procedure. In the case of colonoscopies, most patients don’t have the expertise to know whether they even really needed a colonoscopy or not, and once it has been performed, most patients are not really in a position to judge whether it was performed poorly or well. After surgeries, patients frequently turn to social media to assess the experiences expressed by others and to talk about their own. In this study, we collected 93 patient reviews from MedicineNet from patients who underwent a colonoscopy procedure. We first employ IBM Watson to examine how patients who have undergone colonoscopies talk about their emotions and express sentiment through their comments online. We explore their emotions (anger, disgust, fear, happiness and sadness) and their overall sentiment after undergoing a colonoscopy. While a colonoscopy is not a positive experience for most patients, evidenced by mostly negative sentiment and high levels of fear and sadness, some do express a positive sentiment, and the emotion of joy. This was seen in patients who shared commend that they were happy that the procedure was “over”, or they were relieved when their results indicated no evidence of cancer or other serious illnesses. Limitations are ackn, QC 20220613

The amount of user-generated content (UGC) in the hospitality industry has exploded. Much of it exists in crowdsourced social media, forums, blogs and review sites. Schuckert et al. (2015) did a study on the role of online customer reviews in the hospitality industry and found that reviews can be a strategic tool and have a crucial role in hospitality and tourism management. By investigating user-generated material more thoroughly, the firms can better align their social media messages to the different and unique needs of their social media users (Zhu and Chen 2015). In doing this, they can better leverage the increasingly important social media. Although the predominant strategic perspectives, including the resource-based view, transaction cost economics and positioning tend to ignore the ultimate objects of strategy, the customer, the advent of social media may lead to a change. With the growth of social media and other UGC, there is a significant opportunity to use the views, thoughts, ideas, attitudes and so on from the actual consumer to help build a strategy from the bottom-up, rather than just top-down. Unsurprisingly, a focus on bottom-up or demand-side strategy is appropriate, especially in marketing strategy, where the customer plays such a crucial role. As this UGC is a source of customer intelligence, firms should be able to improve their market research resulting in better strategic decision making. Therefore, the primary purpose of this study is to understand whether a firm strategy can be enriched by using demand-side insights generated by customers. Resulting in the primary question—How can user-generated content help firms make strategic decisions? In sum, in this research, we argue that the crowd through its production of online content can aid firms in their demand-side marketing research, particularly concerning strategic decision making. Furthermore, as the amount of user-generated content continues to grow, new tools and techniques allow firms, QC 20220613

Through the employee lens of business-to-business (B2B) firms, we explore word use through brand engagement and social media interaction to understand what makes the difference of those employees who rate their employer brands highly on social media, and those who do not. This content becomes a valuable source of information for marketing decision makers, as well as an interesting and rich new source of data for B2B marketing scholars. Fortunately, the recent past has not only seen a significant rise in the amount of unstructured textual data available to researchers, but also a noteworthy increase in the number and sophistication of tools available to perform textual content analysis using computers. One of the major computerized text analysis tools in use today is LIWC (Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count), the development of which is described by Pennebaker and his colleagues (Pennebaker et al. 2001). We conducted a textual content analysis of social media job evaluation site glassdoor.com using the LIWC software package to analyze 30 of the top 200 B2B brands listed on Brandwatch using four variables, namely, analytical thinking, clout, authenticity, and emotional tone. The results show that employees who rate their employer’s brand low use significantly more words, are significantly less analytic, and write with significantly more clout because they focus more on others than themselves. Employees who rate their employer’s brand highly, write with significantly more authenticity, exhibit a significantly higher tone, and display far more positive emotions in their reviews. Brand engagement drives brand equity. Brand equity is not only a significant indicator of marketing effectiveness, it is also a fundamental driver of firm value. This research demonstrates that B2B brand managers and B2B branding scholars should treat social media data disseminated by individual stakeholders, like the variables used in this study (tone, word count, and frequency), as an opportuni, QC 20220613

Classifications of higher education institutions into categories that are more or less clearly differentiated through prestige and status are legion in the world of higher education. The notion of parallel categories with comparable statuses, such as those of different types of universities, is however much less well understood. This paper investigates how universities navigate between such alternative categories. We examine boundary work and institutional change involving Swedish higher education institutions with significant activity in engineering sciences in order to analyse how actors relate to ideas regarding the category ‘technical university’ as an ideal potentially distinct from that of the broad, comprehensive university. Analysis of two cases in the second half of the twentieth century shows that for engineering faculty, a focused technical university was an attractive alternative to the institutional model of the broad university. In contrast, analysis of two twenty-first-century cases suggests that aspirations to be recognised as a technical university were largely driven by adaption to external stakeholders’ interests. We discuss these findings in light of the emergence of the global hegemonic category ‘research university’. We also suggest that the organisational identity of a HEI may be tied to ideas about an organisational category through imprinting and path dependency. Moreover, we propose that changes over time in how categories are perceived may serve as an impetus to organisational change., QC 20220428

Recruiting employees to an entrepreneurial venture is a challenging task. From the employee’s perspective, accepting a position in an entrepreneurial venture potentially implies considerable uncertainty. This paper provide a literature review and identifies research gaps related to labor mobility of employees into and out of entrepreneurial firms. Who works for an entrepreneur? What are the conditions under which the employees of entrepreneurial firms work? Additionally, labor mobility after an employee works for an entrepreneurial firm is discussed. In conclusion, the quality of the jobs generated by entrepreneurial firms may be questionable (and still relatively unexplored in empirical research), but they are nevertheless important from a labor dynamic perspective. Better understanding about motives to work for an entrepreneur, issues related to job security beyond survival rates, and job quality may contribute to ease the recruitment problems that many entrepreneurial firms struggle with. Furthermore, the relevance and potential pros and cons of working for an entrepreneurial firm in future career paths (entrepreneur or employee) need to be carefully addressed in future research., QC 20191111

Background Home care is beset with work environment issues and high staff turnover, while research concerned with interventions to improve the work environment is sparse. Few of the existing interventions apply a participative approach, despite this being associated with more positive outcomes and sustainable change. This paper presents a framework, rooted in action research and action learning, for participatory work environment interventions in home care, and demonstrates how this framework has been implemented in four Swedish home care organizations. Methods The framework has three phases (pre-intervention, intervention planning and intervention implementation) and consists of cycles of action and reflection in three constellations: a group of researchers, a reference group with labour market organization representatives and home care managers, and intervention work groups in the home care organizations. The work was documented and analysed with focus on the realization of the framework and challenges that were met on the way. The interventions were evaluated using a pre-/post-test questionnaire design. Results Parts of the framework were successfully implemented. The pre-intervention phase and the intervention planning phase, with intervention work groups, worked well. All four groups identified one intervention relevant to their own context. However, only two of the proposed interventions were fully implemented and evaluated. The high staff and management turnover, and the high rate of organizational changes made it impossible to evaluate the interventions statistically. Yet, data from open-ended questions in the post questionnaire showed that the two implemented interventions were perceived as successful. Conclusions The participatory framework, presented in this paper, seems promising for work environment interventions in home care. The framework was designed to reduce the risk of known disturbances affecting the process in unstable organizations. Despite thi, QC 20220405

Interest in entrepreneurial ecosystems—the geographically-bound social networks of institutions and cultural values that give rise to and sustain entrepreneurial activity—have intensified in recent years (Roundy 2016; Spigel 2016). This growing attraction is driven by a need to better understand the concentration of high growth ventures in regions with thriving entrepreneurial ecosystems (Roundy and Fayard 2019). Despite the evolving discussions, few studies have conducted a critical analysis of the entrepreneurial ecosystems literature, with a surge in recent calls to do so (Audretsch et al. 2019). To address this gap, this study presents a bibliographic analysis of extant literature on entrepreneurial ecosystems in academic journal articles, spanning the last 25 years. The aim is to identify the most relevant authors, countries, and institutions in the field and to analyze who has contributed to the growth of the concept since its emergence. The Web of Science Core Collection is used as the repository for the bibliometric information, and bibliographic network mapping is developed using the visualization of similarities, VOSviewer, software tool. The most cited paper was published in Research Policy in 2014, by authors Autio et al. (2014), titled “Entrepreneurial innovation: the importance of context”. A citation count over the past twenty-five years shows that the authors who have influenced the field of entrepreneurial ecosystems the most are Wright, Autio, and Kenney. Other notable scholars who have also made significant contributions to the field are the economists Ács, Audretsch, and Etzkowitz, and the entrepreneurship scholars Isenberg, Spigel, and Stam. The most prolific journals on the topic are Small Business Economics, Journal of Technology Transfer, and European Planning Studies, while country-level impact and research productivity is concentrated in the USA and England. Using citations as a proxy, the most influential and prolific academic literature o, QC 20230111

This paper analyses faculty experiences tackling global knowledge asymmetries by examining the decolonisation of higher education in Africa in the aftermath of the 2015 ‘Rhodes Must Fall’ student uprising. An overview of the literature reveals a rich debate on defining ‘decolonisation’, starting from a critique of Eurocentrism to propositions of alternate epistemologies. These debates are dominated by the Global North and South Africa and their experiences of curriculum reform. Our focus is on the experiences of political scientists in Botswana, Ghana, Kenya, and Zimbabwe. These countries share the same Anglophone political science traditions but represent different political trajectories that constitute a significant condition for the discipline. The 26 political scientists we interviewed acted toward increasing local content and perspectives in their teaching, as promoted in the official strategies of the universities. They noted that what was happening in lecture halls was most important. The academic decolonisation debate appeared overambitious or even as patronising to them in their own political context. National politics affected the thematic focus of the discipline both as far as research topics and students’ employment opportunities were concerned. Although university bureaucracies were slow to respond to proposed curricula changes, new programmes were approved if there was a market-based demand for them. International programs tended to be approved fastest. Political economy of higher education plays a role: dependency on foreign funding, limited national resources to conduct research and produce publications vis-à-vis international competition, and national quality assurance standards appeared to be most critical constraints for decolonising the curriculum., QC 20230227

This paper analyses faculty experiences tackling global knowledge asymmetries by examining the decolonisation of higher education in Africa in the aftermath of the 2015 ‘Rhodes Must Fall’ student uprising. An overview of the literature reveals a rich debate on defining ‘decolonisation’, starting from a critique of Eurocentrism to propositions of alternate epistemologies. These debates are dominated by the Global North and South Africa and their experiences of curriculum reform. Our focus is on the experiences of political scientists in Botswana, Ghana, Kenya, and Zimbabwe. These countries share the same Anglophone political science traditions but represent different political trajectories that constitute a significant condition for the discipline. The 26 political scientists we interviewed acted toward increasing local content and perspectives in their teaching, as promoted in the official strategies of the universities. They noted that what was happening in lecture halls was most important. The academic decolonisation debate appeared overambitious or even as patronising to them in their own political context. National politics affected the thematic focus of the discipline both as far as research topics and students’ employment opportunities were concerned. Although university bureaucracies were slow to respond to proposed curricula changes, new programmes were approved if there was a market-based demand for them. International programs tended to be approved fastest. Political economy of higher education plays a role: dependency on foreign funding, limited national resources to conduct research and produce publications vis-à-vis international competition, and national quality assurance standards appeared to be most critical constraints for decolonising the curriculum., QC 20230227

This paper analyses faculty experiences tackling global knowledge asymmetries by examining the decolonisation of higher education in Africa in the aftermath of the 2015 ‘Rhodes Must Fall’ student uprising. An overview of the literature reveals a rich debate on defining ‘decolonisation’, starting from a critique of Eurocentrism to propositions of alternate epistemologies. These debates are dominated by the Global North and South Africa and their experiences of curriculum reform. Our focus is on the experiences of political scientists in Botswana, Ghana, Kenya, and Zimbabwe. These countries share the same Anglophone political science traditions but represent different political trajectories that constitute a significant condition for the discipline. The 26 political scientists we interviewed acted toward increasing local content and perspectives in their teaching, as promoted in the official strategies of the universities. They noted that what was happening in lecture halls was most important. The academic decolonisation debate appeared overambitious or even as patronising to them in their own political context. National politics affected the thematic focus of the discipline both as far as research topics and students’ employment opportunities were concerned. Although university bureaucracies were slow to respond to proposed curricula changes, new programmes were approved if there was a market-based demand for them. International programs tended to be approved fastest. Political economy of higher education plays a role: dependency on foreign funding, limited national resources to conduct research and produce publications vis-à-vis international competition, and national quality assurance standards appeared to be most critical constraints for decolonising the curriculum., QC 20230227

This paper analyses faculty experiences tackling global knowledge asymmetries by examining the decolonisation of higher education in Africa in the aftermath of the 2015 ‘Rhodes Must Fall’ student uprising. An overview of the literature reveals a rich debate on defining ‘decolonisation’, starting from a critique of Eurocentrism to propositions of alternate epistemologies. These debates are dominated by the Global North and South Africa and their experiences of curriculum reform. Our focus is on the experiences of political scientists in Botswana, Ghana, Kenya, and Zimbabwe. These countries share the same Anglophone political science traditions but represent different political trajectories that constitute a significant condition for the discipline. The 26 political scientists we interviewed acted toward increasing local content and perspectives in their teaching, as promoted in the official strategies of the universities. They noted that what was happening in lecture halls was most important. The academic decolonisation debate appeared overambitious or even as patronising to them in their own political context. National politics affected the thematic focus of the discipline both as far as research topics and students’ employment opportunities were concerned. Although university bureaucracies were slow to respond to proposed curricula changes, new programmes were approved if there was a market-based demand for them. International programs tended to be approved fastest. Political economy of higher education plays a role: dependency on foreign funding, limited national resources to conduct research and produce publications vis-à-vis international competition, and national quality assurance standards appeared to be most critical constraints for decolonising the curriculum., QC 20230227

This paper analyses faculty experiences tackling global knowledge asymmetries by examining the decolonisation of higher education in Africa in the aftermath of the 2015 ‘Rhodes Must Fall’ student uprising. An overview of the literature reveals a rich debate on defining ‘decolonisation’, starting from a critique of Eurocentrism to propositions of alternate epistemologies. These debates are dominated by the Global North and South Africa and their experiences of curriculum reform. Our focus is on the experiences of political scientists in Botswana, Ghana, Kenya, and Zimbabwe. These countries share the same Anglophone political science traditions but represent different political trajectories that constitute a significant condition for the discipline. The 26 political scientists we interviewed acted toward increasing local content and perspectives in their teaching, as promoted in the official strategies of the universities. They noted that what was happening in lecture halls was most important. The academic decolonisation debate appeared overambitious or even as patronising to them in their own political context. National politics affected the thematic focus of the discipline both as far as research topics and students’ employment opportunities were concerned. Although university bureaucracies were slow to respond to proposed curricula changes, new programmes were approved if there was a market-based demand for them. International programs tended to be approved fastest. Political economy of higher education plays a role: dependency on foreign funding, limited national resources to conduct research and produce publications vis-à-vis international competition, and national quality assurance standards appeared to be most critical constraints for decolonising the curriculum., QC 20230227