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This paper aims to explore the challenges researchers in/on Africa face when conducting research on the continent. It examines the reasons behind Africans’ relatively limited contribution to the business literature in the global sphere and why not culturally sensitive and nuanced research on Africa is spreading unchallenged.

The study combines knowledge creation and institutional theories to explain why African business scholars struggle in researching the continent and in contributing significantly to global knowledge creation. It also explores the debate about why Africa’s narratives in business seem dominated by not culturally sensitive and nuanced voices and approaches. It uses a participant observation method.

The study found that African scholars have not yet contributed significantly to global knowledge creation because of Africa’s institutional weaknesses and lack of government support for research, coupled with challenges at the interviewing, organizational and scholars’ levels. The study points to the specificities of the continent as well as to African interviewees’ particularities and the type of interactions with the researchers. The paper proposes new avenues to address those multilevel challenges and offers key lessons for future studies.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to systematically investigate the fundamental reasons behind business research challenges in/on Africa from knowledge creation and institutional standpoints. This study also contributes to the growing debate on Africans’ meager contribution to business literature as well as the controversy regarding culturally sensitive vs not culturally sensitive knowledge creation on Africa. Finally, it proposes avenues to understanding and overcoming those challenges.

This study focuses on the use of guanxi by African returnees from China in Africa. It explains how returnees understood and leveraged guanxi to collaborate with Chinese partners.

This study uses semi-structured interviews to document how guanxi is increasingly extending beyond Chinese borders. It focuses on Ethiopia, Kenya and Tanzania and analyzes the returnees' mobilization of guanxi in Sino–African business contexts.

African returnees play an increasingly important role in guanxi internationalization in Africa. Returnees' understanding of guanxi is shaped by their African traditions and their Chinese experiences, creating their new cultural capital and a dynamic Sino–African business mindset.

This paper reveals an emerging shift in the business mindset among African returnees once initiated in guanxi. In addition, guanxi is increasingly practiced by African organizations.

The study explores African partners' experiences regarding Chinese expatriates' knowledge control practices in 29 Sino-African joint ventures in 12 countries. It provides insights into power dynamics and knowledge transfer (KT) from African partners' perspective.

The qualitative paper mobilized semi-structured interviews with Africans who worked with Chinese expatriates across Africa. The study focused on understanding the experiences of African partners when collaborating with their Chinese expatriate colleagues on assignments in joint ventures (JVs) in Africa.

Chinese expatriates employed five tactics, as described by African partners, to control knowledge based on power, behaviors and knowledge type. Particularly, through the lens of unofficial power, this study explains knowledge hiding tactics between knowledge-holding Chinese expatriates and host country knowledge-seeking locals. A new dimension of authority-based knowledge hiding is discovered.

The paper brings new insights into the analysis of power (official and unofficial) boundaries regarding knowledge control mechanisms in joint venture collaborations between employees from China and Africa. Unofficial power appeared as a major leverage for expatriates in monopolizing their strategic knowledge. The study recommends mobilizing African diaspora and repatriates from China to improve KT for Africa.

The purpose of this paper is to critically assesses the major contributions to the academic literature on China’s increased focus on Africa, from 2001 to 2011. It discusses the key trends concerning China’s presence in Africa and draws conclusions on the significance of the studies by emphasizing and contrasting the prevailing positions.

Based on a qualitative approach using an integrative and comprehensive literature review, the authors performed a content analysis of high-impact, peer-reviewed papers.

The paper questions and repositions some of the existing controversies. The results from existing studies remain questionable, requiring further clarification and more theoretical backing. It, moreover, highlights the notion that behind the explicit neutrality views of China’s presence in Africa, implicit assumptions may exist. These are often the differences in narratives conveyed by Western and Southern stakeholders.

Most of the conclusions drawn from this paper need to be re-explored and supported by additional research. This could be done by widening the scope of the analysis. Studies need to provide more empirical support for their assertions through quantitative data and evidence-based qualitative analyses

all within a framework that considers more cultural, social and historical dimensions. The paper also suggests that an institutionally based view appears most relevant in better explaining China in Africa.

This paper reviews a decade of research on China in Africa and presents a snapshot of the current state of knowledge. It also raises concerns to be analyzed by future research and proposes new avenues for better understanding China’s presence in Africa.