Makoba, J. Wagona

About the author: Dr. Makoba received his PhD from the University of California, Berkeley. He is presently Associate Professor, University of Nevada, Reno.

Government Policy and Public Enterprise Performance in Sub-Saharan Africa the Case Studies of Tanzania and Zambia, 1964-1984

1998 0-7734-2229-3
This study investigates the impact of state development policies of nationalization, Africanization and import substitution industrialization (ISI) on the activities and performance of selected industrial public enterprises (or parastatal organizations). Contrary to conventional wisdom, findings in this study show clearly that public enterprise performance in Tanzania and Zambia, as elsewhere in developing countries, is a result of the quality of management rather than type of ownership. It contributes to the current state-market debate by arguing that any meaningful understanding of economic growth and performance must take into account the roles of both state and market as well as the particular historical and sociopolitical context within which they coexist. Finally, the study extends the application of the resource dependency models of organizations to organizational behavior in Sub-Saharan Africa by demonstrating that local enterprise managers in both Tanzania and Zambia, rather than intelligently scanning their environment, are often overwhelmed by it.