Heuristics of a hybridization process of management education in Africa: Accommodation practice and risk of “xessalization” of a business school
This article analyses, through a multi-sited auto-ethnography, the practices of an African business school confronted with the contradictions of globalisation and the desire for emancipation. The results show an adherence to international requirements subverted to adapt practices—in a process of hybridization not expressly assumed—to singular local realities. They enrich the discussion on hybridisation by showing how a school reinterprets international standards in a logic of appropriation/deformation despite a rhetoric of uniformity. They also reveal a risk of “xessalization”, a mere juxtaposition and superimposition of different antagonistic influences and aspirations that are likely to hamper internal harmony.