Theorizing African Business Education: Toward an Indigenized Framework for Business and Commercial Education in Sub-Saharan Africa

This study undertook the ambitious theoretical project of constructing an indigenized framework for Business and Commercial Education in Sub-Saharan Africa, with Nigeria as the primary empirical grounding. The dominant paradigms in global Business Education scholarship are rooted in Western academic traditions, many of which inadequately capture the institutional realities, cultural values, economic structures, and knowledge systems of African societies. This study addresses this fundamental theoretical deficit by synthesizing African philosophical traditions, indigenous business knowledge systems, and empirical findings from the Nigerian context into a coherent indigenized framework. Drawing on the Afrocentric Paradigm, Indigenous Knowledge Systems Theory, the African Ubuntu Management Philosophy, and the Theory of Situated Learning, a five-phase theorization process was employed. Phase one synthesized African philosophical texts and pre-colonial trade history. Phase two analyzed indigenous Nigerian commercial practices through ethnographic fieldwork in Yoruba, Igbo, Hausa-Fulani, and Tiv commercial communities. Phase three conducted eighty expert interviews with African scholars, business practitioners, and traditional knowledge holders across Nigeria and four other Sub-Saharan African countries. Phase four synthesized findings into a draft framework subjected to iterative expert validation through three rounds of critical review. Phase five developed practical curriculum applications of the framework. The resulting African Business Education Framework (AFBEF) integrates communal value creation, Ubuntu enterprise ethics, oral knowledge transmission, kinship economic networks, and indigenous risk management as core theoretical pillars alongside globally applicable business competencies. The study makes an unprecedented original contribution to the decolonization of Business Education in Sub-Saharan Africa. Keywords: indigenized framework, African Business Education, Afrocentricity, Sub-Saharan Africa, decolonization