{"id":1028,"date":"2015-04-15T12:00:01","date_gmt":"2015-04-15T11:00:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/?p=1028"},"modified":"2016-10-28T13:15:27","modified_gmt":"2016-10-28T12:15:27","slug":"even-neighboring-countries-are-distant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/2015\/04\/15\/even-neighboring-countries-are-distant\/","title":{"rendered":"Even Neighboring Countries are Distant"},"content":{"rendered":"

As I ventured into Nigeria and Kenya, the locals warned me: “don\u2019t think all of Africa is like us.” In fact, the number one lesson to learn about Africa is that it is not “one” place: even neighboring countries are distant. <\/span><\/a>\u00a0This has important implications for companies doing\u00a0business\u00a0in Africa and\u00a0expanding in the continent<\/strong>: whether traditional multinationals, emerging market multinationals (EMMs), Pan-African companies<\/a>, and even African regional companies.<\/p>\n

\"Each
Each African country has its own culture<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

What does country distance mean? In his CAGE model, my colleague at IESE Pankaj Ghemawat considers four types of distance: C<\/strong>ultural, A<\/strong>dministrative, G<\/strong>eographic, and E<\/strong>conomic. Here, I’ll focus on cultural distance, and I will deal with the other dimensions at a later time.<\/p>\n

The Hofstede Center <\/a>scores countries on a number of cultural dimensions<\/strong>. They provide information on 15 sub-Saharan countries (see figure below).<\/p>\n

Some snapshots showing the differences in these countries (score range is 1-100. I include information on the US, China, and Spain <\/strong>for reference):<\/p>\n

\"Cultural\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Some observations about these SSA countries, at the risk of playing down their diversity<\/strong>:<\/p>\n