Cairo, Egypt 2023

Globalization and digitalization are having a transformative effect on the nature and organization of work as organizations strive to adapt to the competitive pressures unleased by these twin environmental forces. For many organizations, adapting to these pressures has entailed the adoption of new business models as they strategize to explore and exploit the threats and opportunities in the increasingly changed environment. Additionally, digitilization has engendered new forms of work organization and altered long standing employment conditions.

In tandem with these adaptive organizational responses are shifting societal values. For example, the previous prioritization of achievement of organizational goals at the expense of the well-being of individual employees is increasingly being replaced to one that focuses on the sustainable management of employees. These environmental forces particularly digitilization has enabled organizations to enhance operational processes, develop innovative products and services, provide high quality jobs for segments of the workforce, and individualization of employment conditions.

Yet, these benefits are counterbalanced by the emergence of a growing number of employees who find themselves in precarious jobs, have limited opportunities for skill development, deteriorating working conditions, and increasingly constitute the working poor.

The theme of this conference “Transforming Organizations in the Digital Era: Dignity, Justice, and Prosperity in Africa” is intended to provide a forum for a robust exchange of ideas and sharing of research findings to illuminate our understanding of how organizations in Africa are adapting to the preceding transformative forces of globalization and digitilization. Additionally, the conference aims to understand how the nature and contexts of work can be redesigned to foster sustainable management of employees to promote workplace dignity, justice, and prosperity for employees and their communities.

We therefore encourage submission of empirical and conceptual papers that speak to the theme of the conference and explore answers to such questions as: