National Managerial Talent Development in Ghanaian Gold Mining Industry: Comparing Western and Indigenous Approaches

Abstract

Management development in improving productivity has become powerful tool for management effectiveness, as well as to address the management gap especially in developing countries. However, management development programmes follow Western concepts and curricula which, in most situations, are not relevant to African context. Data from interviews of 26 national managers in the Ghanaian gold mining industry produced definition of their talent development and how they expect the development programme to run in industry. The definition is just a reproduction of Western concepts of management development. Motivated by strong display of Ghanaian identity and cultural practices during author’s interactions with some national managers, the main concern of this paper is to assess how these Western concepts of management development could be localised to be consistent with traditional Ghanaian learning methods to develop national managers (in the Western dominated Ghanaian gold mining industry). Applying indigenous methodology, the Western concept of management development is compared to indigenous approach. Results of comparative assessment of the two approaches reveal that traditional Ghanaian education has it strong and enduring versions of the elements of the Western approach to talent development, most of which the author speculates are stronger in driving the talent process than the Western versions.

Key words: management development, national managers, indigenous methodology, traditional learning methods, Western concept