Multinational Corporations in West Africa: Building Decentralized Partnerships

ISBN-13: 9781032535449 / Angielski

Souleymane Doumbia

Opis

This book investigates the relationship that multinational firms form with local authorities and government in West Africa. It argues that informal partnerships at the local level can provide significant socio-economic benefits to communities and overcome shortfalls in state provision of infrastructure and collective goods and services.

Drawing on in-depth case studies in Niger, Ghana and Liberia, the book demonstrates that decentralized partnerships benefit from lower transaction costs, whilst maintaining profitability and investment protection, whereas in formal relationships between multinationals and local government, asset specificity and uncertainty are high. By complying with informal rules, which are in many ways just as restrictive as formal rules, multinational firms can adapt and acculturate themselves, become actors of territorial authorities, and can get around the incompleteness of the contract that binds them to the State.

Reflecting on a range of local projects (educational, infrastructural, health, micro-financial, entrepreneurial), this book provides a rich and detailed assessment of the interactions between local authorities and multinational firms.

The book will be useful to upper level students and researchers across the fields of economics, business, sociology, anthropology, and African studies, as well as to development practitioners and regional and international organizations with in interest in the functioning of Multinational Corporations in local environments.

Spis treści

Introduction. Chapter 1- The Challenges of this Book. Chapter 2 - Territorialized investments in Sub-Saharan Africa. Chapter 3- Theoretical interpretation of the Decentralized Partnership (DePa). Chapter 4 - Three cases of Decentralized Partnerships (DePa) in West Africa. Chapter 5 - Performance of Decentralized Partnerships (DePa). Conclusion. Bibliography

O autorze

Souleymane Doumbia has a PhD in economics and management and is a member associated to the LAREQUOI, Research Center of ISM-IAE Graduate School of Management–UVSQ/Paris-Saclay University (France). His work focuses on development economics. He is a capacity-building specialist.