Will China’s entrepreneurial migrant managers awaken Africa’s dream of becoming the next factory of the world?

Abstract

Purpose

China’s biggest contribution to Africa’s modernization is more likely to come from the rapidly expanding number of Chinese migrants determined to seek their fortunes by setting up manufacturing businesses across the continent, according to Irene Yuan Sun in her new book The Next Factory of the World: How Chinese Investment is Reshaping Africa. She is interviewed by S&L contributing editor Brian Leavy.

Design/methodology/approach

Irene Sun, a senior McKinsey consultant has spent years researching infrastructure modernization and manufacturing expansion in Africa for her new book.

Findings

China is the fastest-growing source of foreign investment in Africa, and this has enormous consequences for Africa and for the global economy.

Practical implications

Nowadays, a lot of the managers with the needed skills and resilience are Chinese people who worked their way up in factories in China in conditions that not so long ago were very similar to what’s in Africa today.

Originality/value

Sun’s big insight: “I’d like Westerners to understand that China’s activities in Africa don’t represent a threat, either to Africa or to the West.” For Western observers who are alarmed by China’s strategy of investing in African infrastructure to gain favorable access to its natural resources she offers a new context: China’s experience at industrialization under primitive conditions can transform Africa into the next Factory of the World.

Citation

Leavy, B. (2018), "Will China’s entrepreneurial migrant managers awaken Africa’s dream of becoming the next factory of the world?", Strategy & Leadership, Vol. 46 No. 1, pp. 36-42. https://doi.org/10.1108/SL-11-2017-0107