An African Voice Reframing Management Orthodoxy
Published this July by the Paris-based house Jets d’encre, “Problematics and Memories of Management” arrives at a moment when African boardrooms are re-examining the very grammar of leadership. In 112 dense pages Cédric Jovial Ondaye-Ebauh, a Cameroonian national long settled in Brazzaville, weaves autobiographical vignettes with conceptual scrutiny to show how twentieth-century management precepts survive—or falter—under the pressures of digital disruption, demographic dynamism and shifting geopolitical alignments. Regional commentators in Les Dépêches de Brazzaville salute the book’s “lucid pragmatism” while scholars at the University of Yaoundé note its rare capacity to reconcile Anglophone and Francophone managerial canons.
Ondaye-Ebauh draws deliberately on Peter Drucker’s emphasis on purposeful organisation and on Henri Fayol’s administrative pillars, yet he questions their sufficiency in countries where mobile connectivity leaps faster than regulatory codification. The author’s argumentative method feels consciously dialectical: he states a classic principle, injects a vignette from a Central African banking desk and lets the tension play out. The effect is less a repudiation of orthodoxy than an invitation to contextualise it—an approach that echoes Stanford scholar Robert Sutton’s call for “evidence-based agility” (Harvard Business Review, May 2020).
Contextual Resonance with Central African Governance Priorities
The essay’s local reception is buoyed by Brazzaville’s own development discourse. President Denis Sassou Nguesso’s administration, in its National Development Plan 2022-2026, identifies managerial competence as a cross-cutting accelerator for public-sector reform. Ondaye-Ebauh’s insistence on leadership as a “force deployed within an operational and strategic context” dovetails with the Plan’s advocacy for performance contracts in state entities. Officials at the Ministry of Planning point to the book as a “timely complement” to capacity-building programmes financed by the African Development Bank (African Development Bank, 2023).
Crucially, the author refrains from moralising lectures. Instead he offers what Congolese economist Jean-Albert Itoua describes as “gentle mirror holding”—placing local managerial habits against global benchmarks without vilifying either. That positioning aligns with Brazzaville’s diplomatic preference for constructive criticism and undoubtedly contributes to the work’s circulation in ministerial reading rooms.
Balancing Classical Canon with Agile Leadership Narratives
One of the book’s intellectual achievements lies in its capacity to treat agility not as a technocratic fetish but as an ethical choice. Ondaye-Ebauh argues that, in volatile environments, the most valuable managerial resource is psychological safety that permits experimentation. He recounts a moment during the 2014 oil-price shock when his treasury team, facing liquidity constraints, experimented with staggered currency swaps to sustain SME credit lines. The episode illustrates how agility demands courage rather than mere iterative technology.
By juxtaposing that anecdote with Drucker’s injunction to “abandon yesterday,” the author suggests a synthesis in which doctrine informs improvisation. Management theorist Mary Maitland of the African Management Institute praises the passage for offering “an African narrative of resilience that enriches global literature” (African Management Institute, 2022).
Echoes from the Banking Floor to Policy Corridors
Ondaye-Ebauh’s vantage point is neither purely academic nor exclusively corporate. As a former senior executive at the Bank of Central African States, he straddles the line between prudential regulation and commercial urgency. That liminal position allows him to discuss credit-risk matrices in the same breath as the sociological weight of extended families on decision-making. Former colleagues cite his talent for translating Basel norms into vernacular metaphors, a skill mirrored in the book’s accessible prose.
The narrative gains further depth when it explores crisis management. During the 2020 pandemic, the author volunteered on a task-force harmonising remote-work protocols across the CEMAC region. His reflections on “distributed vigilance”—ensuring compliance without eroding trust—offer practical insights for both enterprises and public agencies grappling with hybrid workplaces. The International Monetary Fund’s 2021 capacity-development report cites similar challenges, lending the author implicit corroboration (IMF, 2021).
Implications for Congo-Brazzaville’s Human Capital Agenda
Beyond its literary merit, the essay feeds into a broader conversation about how Congo-Brazzaville can leverage intellectual capital for diversification. The Ministry of Higher Education is piloting case-study based curricula at Marien Ngouabi University, and excerpts from Ondaye-Ebauh’s work are slated for inclusion next semester. Professor Adélaïde Moukété contends that the text “places Central African leadership challenges squarely within global epistemic currents without surrendering agency.” Such academic adoption aligns with Brazzaville’s objective of cultivating a new cadre of managers capable of executing the country’s Special Economic Zone strategies.
Investors, too, are attentive. A Kinshasa-based private-equity partner, requesting anonymity, notes that the book’s exploration of ethical governance “reinforces our thesis that compliant corporate culture will be the decisive variable in francophone Africa’s next growth cycle.” That prognosis resonates with Sassou Nguesso’s repeated calls for transparency and professionalism during successive annual addresses to the nation.
A Subtle Contribution to Pan-African Managerial Literature
With its interlacing of memoir and model, “Problematics and Memories of Management” enriches a still-modest corpus of francophone African management writing. The text neither posits a universal panacea nor indulges in fatalism; it advocates instead for what the author labels “permanent negotiation with reality.” That stance, reminiscent of Ghanaian philosopher Kwame Appiah’s cosmopolitan pragmatism, may explain the book’s traction among diplomats seeking nuanced cultural briefings.
Ultimately, Ondaye-Ebauh offers a reminder that management, when properly conceived, transcends formal hierarchies and enters the realm of civic responsibility. In recognising that resonance, Congo-Brazzaville underscores its commitment to nurturing leaders who can steer public and private institutions with competency, adaptability and ethical clarity—qualities essential to achieving the region’s long-term stability and prosperity.
