Getting back on track: change
management at AfrobitLink Ltd
Olugbenga Adeyinka and Mary Kuchta Foster
Olugbenga Adeyinka is a
Doctoral Student and
Mary Kuchta Foster is an
Associate Professor, both at
the Earl G. Graves School of
Business and Management,
Morgan State University,
Baltimore, Maryland, USA.
Disclaimer. This case is written
solely for educational purposes
and is not intended to represent
successful or unsuccessful
managerial decision making. The
author/s may have disguised
names; financial, and other
recognizable information to protect
confidentiality.
PAGE 120 j THE CASE JOURNAL
The clock struck midnight on Friday, January 17, 2014 and Ken Wilson did not even notice that it
was well past his bedtime. He was lost in thought about how to get AfrobitLink Ltd, his father’s
company, back on track. Time was short; one misstep could bankrupt the firm and devastate the
lives and careers of more than 500 people. The last few weeks had seemed like the busiest
weeks of his life. He had just returned from a three-week tour where he had visited about half of
AfrobitLink’s 36 locations and it was starting to sink in how much trouble the firm had gotten into
while he had been away getting his MBA and then working for a consulting firm. Ken had recently
returned to Nigeria and assumed the role of Vice President of Administration at AfrobitLink. The
weight of this new responsibility to his father, his family, and the firm pressed on him. How could
so much have gone wrong while he had been away?
Henry Wilson, Ken’s father, founded AfrobitLink, an information technology (IT) services
company in 1997. AfrobitLink started as a small company with one office in Lagos, Nigeria and
fewer than two dozen employees. Initially, AfrobitLink was profitable and had a reputation for
excellent service and superior technical expertise. All the firm’s employees knew one another and
respected each other. Employees demonstrated a high sense of identification with the firm and
were deeply committed to the company’s goals.
Then, starting in 2004, AfrobitLink grew very rapidly as the telecommunications market was
deregulated by the Nigerian government. Within three years, AfrobitLink had an office in each of
the 36 states in Nigeria and over 500 employees. During this period of rapid expansion,
AfrobitLink changed dramatically. Poor hiring practices, inadequate training, excessive spans of
control, low accountability, a subjective reward system, and other cultural issues, such as a
relaxed attitude to time, had resulted in low motivation, high employee turnover, poor customer
service, and financial losses. By 2013, the firm was operating at a loss and its reputation was in
shambles. Generally, the culture was toxic: employees did not identify with the firm or care about
its goals, there were no performance standards, employees were not held accountable,
self-interest and discrimination prevailed. The organization was in a downward spiral.
Henry had asked Ken to return to Nigeria and join the firm as Vice President of Administration.
Henry was counting on Ken to save the firm – to avoid bankruptcy and to re-establish a culture of
excellence and service. Now, Ken needed to decide how to avoid financial ruin and change the
toxic culture. This felt like a daunting task; as he thought about the situation, he asked himself
many questions: could the firm be saved? How? What should the first steps be? Was he the right
person to lead this effort? Who else had to be on board?
Founding AfrobitLink Ltd
Before founding AfrobitLink, Henry, who held a computer engineering degree, was the Chief
Information Officer for many years at Nestlé, one of the leading consumer package goods
companies in Nigeria. He was the outgoing type; he enjoyed talking with people and literally,
within minutes, earned peoples’ trust and respect. Henry exemplified a culture of excellence in
everything he did. He believed in going above and beyond the call of duty to get his job done,
j VOL. 13 NO. 1 2017, pp. 120-151, © Emerald Publishing Limited, ISSN 1544-9106 DOI 10.1108/TCJ-08-2015-0042
even when it involved making personal sacrifices. His dedication to work did not go unnoticed;
many times, he won the much-coveted “employee of the year award” at Nestlé. He was rewarded
with pay increases and quick promotions for his outstanding performance. Henry’s philosophy
was anchored in what he called “the 3Ds of success: discipline, dedication, and determination.”
Henry’s keen observation of Nigerian businesses in the IT industry revealed a lack of credibility in
terms of professionalism, education, skills, and the ability to deliver on promises to clients. He
noticed that many “so-called” IT professionals consistently let their clients and customers down
as a result of what he called their “inadequate knowledge” or “half knowledge.” He also noted that
many indigenous Nigerian IT businesses still conducted their day-to-day business activities on
“African time” resulting in dissatisfied clients. See Exhibit 1 for more information on Nigeria as well
as a discussion of the culture, time orientation, work ethic, and diversity of the Nigerian people.
Convinced that he could make a difference in the Nigerian IT services market, Henry decided to
start his own company, specializing in installation, design, and maintenance of local area
networks, wide area networks, data centers, computers, and peripherals. His dream was to build
a team of hard working professionals devoted to a culture of excellence. To realize this goal, he
encouraged every employee to embrace the habits of continuous learning and personal
improvement in his/her career. Henry believed that high quality, on-time, professional service
would create loyal clients and transform the Nigerian IT industry.

Creating a winning culture at AfrobitLink

Henry loved reading and had an unparalleled drive for learning new and more efficient ways of
doing things. He wanted all AfrobitLink employees to develop these habits and reflect these
characteristics in their daily business activities at AfrobitLink. From the beginning, he encouraged
every AfrobitLink employee to develop a passion for reading and for seeking knowledge. He
equipped AfrobitLink with a library and provided information and resources on the latest IT
solutions. He also equipped AfrobitLink’s headquarters with a state-of-the-art training lab for
employees. Since AfrobitLink deployed equipment from leading IT manufacturers like Cisco
Systems, Inc., Microsoft Corporation, Brand-Rex, and Corning Cable Systems, every one of
AfrobitLink’s engineers had to get officially certified in the use of this equipment to provide clients
with superior IT solutions. In the beginning, every AfrobitLink engineer held professional
certifications in the use of these systems. Employees who demonstrated excellence in their duties
were recognized and rewarded with pay increases and promotions.
To create a positive working culture at AfrobitLink, every employee participated in “The
AfrobitLink Way” training. This was a mandatory two-week training program to introduce the
AfrobitLink culture to new employees and acclimate them to the culture. Henry also created
the AfrobitLink Creed, which was essentially a summary of his “3D’s of Success” (see Exhibit 2).
The AfrobitLink Creed was posted in strategic places for all employees to see. In addition, Henry
created and shared AfrobitLink’s mission statement:
At AfrobitLink Ltd, we are dedicated to providing our esteemed customers in Nigeria with information
and communication technology services of the highest quality in a timely and effective manner. This is
made possible by a team of employees who are experts in the areas of networking technology
solutions, data center design, installation and design of structured cable networks, as well as
installation and maintenance of computer systems and peripherals and who embrace the philosophy
of continuous self-improvement. Our strategies for success, anchored on the concepts of discipline,
dedication, and determination, will ensure that we continue to make a difference in the IT industry
thereby achieving sustainable financial growth.

Everything was going according to Henry’s plan for a while. AfrobitLink was doing very well as
evidenced by increases in revenue and profit. AfrobitLink’s workers were knowledgeable and highly
motivated. They were also accountable and discharged their duties with high levels of
professionalism. Employee turnover was low. AfrobitLink won large contracts with big companies in
Lagos, contracts with reputable American companies like Accenture, PricewaterhouseCoopers,
and Citibank, as well as big oil companies like Shell Nigeria, Chevron Nigeria, and the Nigerian
National Petroleum Company. The company was financially successful and was highly respected
for its delivery of top-notch IT services. AfrobitLink’s revenue (in US dollars) was $0.5 million in 2000,

VOL. 13 NO. 1 2017 j THE CASE JOURNAL j PAGE 121

 $1.3 million in 2003, and $6.8 million in 2004 – the first year of rapid expansion (see Exhibits 3
and 4). In 2003, the AfrobitLink brand was synonymous in the Nigerian IT market with the provision
of high-quality service.

Opportunities for growth and expansion

In 2003, the Nigerian government deregulated the telecommunications sector[1]. Some big
companies won licenses from the government to start telecommunications services in the
country and this created opportunities for AfrobitLink to expand its business to include the
provision of IT services to the new telecommunications firms. These services included installation,
design, and maintenance of infrastructure for telecommunications companies as well as
consulting services. AfrobitLink won major IT service contracts with the new telecommunications
companies. Thus, in 2004, AfrobitLink began a phase of rapid growth.
The Nigerian government mandated that the telecommunications companies provide
telecommunications services in all 36 states of Nigeria within a short time frame. Driven by the
rapid growth of its new telecommunications clients, AfrobitLink also expanded rapidly into each of
the remaining 35 states of Nigeria. AfrobitLink grew from about 20 employees in 2003 to over 500
by 2006. A manager was hired to lead operations in each of the 35 states. The telecom market in
Nigeria was very promising and each of the AfrobitLink state managers was offered a generous
salary and provided with an official car, a personal driver, a lavishly furnished office, a personal
assistant, a fully furnished official residence, a cook and two household helpers. AfrobitLink
management felt these incentives were necessary because state managers would face the
enormous responsibility of overseeing all the employees and daily operations in his/her state.
Thus, the state managers had to be empowered in every way possible. Henry thought that these
expenses would be small in comparison to the huge revenue that AfrobitLink would earn from the
telecommunications line of business.

Problems and challenges at AfrobitLink

Because of the urgent need to meet the demands of the telecommunications companies,
AfrobitLink changed its hiring process and its hiring criteria. The human resources department
hired so quickly that if an individual turned in an application, he/she was likely to get hired within
two days. The new employee would then be required to relocate to the location of his/her
assignment within the next two days. New employees received very little formal training. The
human resources department relied on experienced employees to provide “on the job training” to
the newly hired employees in their new locations/assignments.
The human resources department was stretched and felt a lot of pressure. There were only two
employees in the department. Joe Fisher and another person (Joe was hired to head the HR
department following Henry’s wife, Sue’s illness and consequent retirement in 2003). They
worked overtime for many weeks in order to complete the hiring process on schedule. In order to
make the hiring process faster and more reliable, the HR department made a special request to
each of the state managers to refer potential candidates to the HR department. Most of the
candidates endorsed or referred by a AfrobitLink manager were automatically hired without much
scrutiny as the HR staff assumed that references from managers would be reliable. Little did they
know this would not hold true (see Exhibit 1 for a discussion of Nigerian ethnic and cultural
diversity). During the hiring process, most of the managers placed more emphasis on
recommending candidates from their friends, family, or ethnic group/geographical region than on
finding qualified candidates. Since the pay at AfrobitLink was good, each manager felt he/she
could reward his/her ethnic group by recommending “his/her people” for jobs at AfrobitLink. The
firm’s staff grew from a little over a dozen at inception to over 500 by 2006; the organization was
not prepared for this rapid growth. See Exhibit 6 for AfrobitLink’s organizational structure in 1998.
AfrobitLink’s rapid expansion brought other challenges also. Although a manager who reported
directly to Henry led each of the 36 states, Henry was not able to monitor all the states as closely
as he did when AfrobitLink was small. As a result of his wide span of control, there was low
accountability. The managers’ spans of control were also wide with a manager overseeing about

PAGE 122 j THE CASE JOURNAL j VOL. 13 NO. 1 2017

40-50 employees on average. The state managers were powerful, yet due to their wide spans of
control there was minimal accountability among their direct reports. Given the low accountability,
employees became lax in the discharge of their duties. The culture of the organization changed
dramatically from high standards with high accountability to low or no standards and minimal
accountability. The culture at AfrobitLink gradually grew toxic and needed urgent attention. Most
of the employees did not demonstrate a culture of excellence or continuous improvement. Client
downtime increased as the staff failed to respond to the urgent requests of their clients. Costs
exceeded revenue; profits declined (Exhibit 5). Staff performance was low. Complaints from
clients skyrocketed. Furthermore, it seemed the greater the geographic distance from
headquarters, the lower the productivity and performance of that branch and the higher the
number of client complaints. In all the states, there was high absenteeism, low work motivation,
and high employee turnover.

Ken Wilson: an agent of change

In January of 2014, Ken Wilson returned to AfrobitLink to help his father run the company. He had
earned an MBA at the University of Maryland in College Park, Maryland in the USA. He had also
worked for a few years at McKinsey & Company, a reputable consulting firm in America.
Ken was not new to AfrobitLink; he had interned at AfrobitLink while he was in high school and in
college and knew the culture and the employees who had been with the firm since the beginning.
After college Ken worked for two years at AfrobitLink before going to the USA to study and work.
Henry had impressed upon Ken that as the oldest son he must carry on the work at AfrobitLink
when Henry retired. Henry was grooming Ken to be his successor.
Ken remembered a AfrobitLink retreat that his father organized when he was an intern there; the
retreat was aimed at helping the staff feel empowered to be the best in their job. At that time,
AfrobitLink employees were less than two dozen in number (as depicted in the organizational
chart, see Exhibit 6). There were only five or six engineers, four marketers, two drivers, and two
receptionists. His mother was the HR manager and the company accountant. The retreat had a
positive impact on Ken. Reflecting on the retreat, Ken said:
The AfrobitLink retreat was held in one of the finest hotels on Lagos Island. My father invited top notch
facilitators to train the staff. Overall, the retreat was highly successful – we all felt empowered to deliver
great service to the company’s clients.

Although Ken and Henry had been thousands of miles apart while Ken was in the USA, they
always stayed in touch, and recently Henry had shared troubling reports about AfrobitLink. After a
few years of very rapid growth, AfrobitLink had begun to have financial losses and was on the
brink of bankruptcy. So at his father’s request, Ken took on the role of Vice President of
Administration. In this role, Ken’s responsibilities included growing the firm profitably, solving any
internal issues, motivating and retaining staff, and ensuring that AfrobitLink company policies and
procedures were followed.
After accepting his father’s offer, Ken wasted no time; he got to work immediately. His review of
the financial data confirmed that something needed to be done urgently to save the company
from financial ruin (see Exhibit 5 for AfrobitLink’s income statements). Ken also discovered that
out of the 150 AfrobitLink engineers, only 20 held professional IT certifications on the equipment
they installed and serviced. He noticed that external consultants had been hired to help fix the
problems at AfrobitLink, but their work had yielded few results. In his words:
In the first few weeks at AfrobitLink, I spent a lot of time assessing the situation. Highly fascinating, but
troubling to me, was the fact that so much money had been spent on consultants with the goal of
effecting change. It seemed to me that all this money had literally gone down the drain without any
appreciable progress being made. The problems seemed to have gotten only worse after the
intervention of the consultants.

The consultants reported that although they did not fully understand the technicalities of tasks
completed by engineers at AfrobitLink, they noticed that it took a long time for employees to
complete tasks and fix client problems. The reports of the external consultants also showed that
they encountered high levels of resistance to change as well as opposition and unfriendliness

VOL. 13 NO. 1 2017 j THE CASE JOURNAL j PAGE 123

 from the staff in the different states. A section of the report reflected the observations of the
consultants on a visit to one of the company’s offices in the northern part of the country:
Over half of the staff members were out of the office on one excuse or the other (which on further
probing, their excuses revealed no connection whatsoever to fulfilling their job duties). Many of the
AfrobitLink employees were observed chatting away in small groups, while others were playing games
on their computers. The managers were neither seen to reflect required levels of professionalism
in the discharge of their duties, nor were they seen to perform the core functions required of a
manager in a satisfactory manner. Furthermore, in our opinion, we feel the managers get away with
almost anything.

The report continued:

[…] low levels of order were observed in all the states visited by the consultants. Many employees also
felt that hard work was not adequately rewarded at AfrobitLink and that promotion was based on the
“who you know” factor as most managers favored employees from their own ethnic group over those
who are not. A few employees still work hard, but they earnestly hope for change, expressing
frustration that their hard work is not being adequately rewarded […] These inevitably have led to poor
results and have reflected in the overall performance of the organization.

Ken visited many AfrobitLink locations in the 36 states unannounced. He visited client sites to
actually observe what the engineers were doing. During one of his visits, Ken dressed casually
making it difficult for anyone to realize that he was one of AfrobitLink’s top executives. Most of the
employees dismissed him as one of several visitors on the company’s premises for business.
It was not until he had been on site for more than an hour and had observed with dismay that the
manager was not doing his job that he introduced himself as the Vice President.
After assessing the situation, Ken needed to decide what to do to turn around the firm. Ken had
to formulate plans to achieve this goal and devise ways of implementing his plans effectively. He
knew that his father and his family were counting on him. As he thought about the situation he
asked himself: “What urgent steps needed to be taken to return AfrobitLink to profitability? What
could be done to restore the original winning culture at AfrobitLink? What programs needed to be
put in place and what practical steps would be necessary to institutionalize a culture of
professionalism once again at AfrobitLink?”

Exhibit 1: Nigeria – country and culture overview

Country overview: Nigeria
Nigeria, a country in West Africa (see Figure A1), borders Gulf of Guinea, Benin, Niger, Chad, and
Cameroon, and was the most populous country in Africa.
Nigeria, with a population of over 170 million people, was extremely diverse. There were over 250
ethnic groups and more than 500 languages were spoken. The ethnic groups were different in
their customs, in the way they dressed, and also in the cuisines they ate. With 36 states (see
Figure A2), the country could easily have been described as the USA of Nigeria, if only it had been
truly united. Nigeria had a long history of ethnic and cultural clashes. Nigeria was the seventh
most populous country in the world and in terms of land size Nigeria ranked 32 in the world.
Nigeria was the world’s sixth largest producer of crude oil. However, the overdependence of the
Nigerian economy on petroleum and the attendant mismanagement of resources had fueled
decades of government corruption as well as ethnic clashes Central Intelligence Agency (2015).
The “unity in diversity”[2] sought by Nigeria, which was formerly a British Colony, had eluded the
nation since its independence in 1960. The everyday Nigerian was more loyal to his/her ethnic
group than to the nation. Decades of institutional corruption in this oil rich country, where over
70 percent of its population lived below the poverty line, had cemented a yearning in the average
Nigerian citizen to get a huge and lasting chunk of the “National Cake”[3] whenever the
opportunity presented itself. The average Nigerian politician or person in a position of authority
would appropriate national resources to first favor his family and his/her ethnic group or region
before giving any consideration to other ethnic groups or regions[4]. Loyalty to one’s ethnic group
and discrimination against other ethnic groups had fueled corruption Campbell (2014) and made
it difficult to achieve the Nation’s goal of “unity in diversity.”

PAGE 124 j THE CASE JOURNAL j VOL. 13 NO. 1 2017

Culture overview: Nigeria
Nigerians were very friendly people and happily accommodated foreigners and strangers
Ogbonna (2010). They treated foreigners with respect and dignity, and if necessary, went out of
their way to ensure their well-being. Being a collectivist society, emphasis was placed on
conforming to group identity, respect of elders, and upholding traditional values and norms.
African traditional values as typified by the Nigerian traditional values emphasized hard work,
giving of gifts, greeting one another, as well as being generally generous toward others David
(2013). Africans, generally have been said to demonstrate a relaxed attitude to time Global Times
(2013). This manifested itself in tardiness in keeping appointments, lateness to meetings and
events, etc. The concept of “African time”[5] described the more leisurely and less rigorously
scheduled daily lifestyle of Africans. This was in contrast to the more clock-bound pace of daily life
in other parts of the world, particularly, the west.
Although traditional Nigerian culture (like most African cultures) emphasized the dignity of
labor as well as the values of honesty and hard work, the work attitudes of present day
Nigerians had been a subject of concern for many years Arrey (2014). Researchers had traced
the sources of this poor attitude to the erosion of traditional values (which had anchored
indigenous African societies), decades of government corruption, the “get rich quick”
mindset affecting Nigerian youth, and failure of the modern industrial culture to effectively take
root Abudu (1986).
Hofstede’s study on measures of national cultures ranked Nigeria high on power distance (80),
high on masculinity (60), high on indulgence (84), low on individualism (30), low on long-term
orientation (13), and medium on uncertainty avoidance (55) (The Hofstede Center, 2015)[6].
See Figure A3 for a comparison of Nigeria’s culture with the cultures of the USA and China. These
national cultural dimensions hold important implications for management in Nigerian
organizations.

Notes
1. The deregulation of the telecommunications sector benefitted the nation immensely. In 2014, the
Nigerian telecommunications industry, with over 140 million subscribers contributed about 9 percent to
Nigeria’s GDP and accounted for a foreign direct investment (FDI) of about $32 billion (www.ncc.
gov.ng/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=68:industry-overview&catid=65:industry-
information&Itemid=70).

2. The concept of “unity in diversity” was about harnessing diversity to enhance the realization of common
national goals. Nigerian leaders have sought to unite the nation and to encourage Nigerians to eliminate
sentiments based on ethnic, cultural, or regional differences and to unite to build the nation. A 1957
speech by Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, the first Prime Minister of Nigeria encouraging unity and diversity
can be found here: www.blackpast.org/1957-alhaji-abubakar-tafawa-balewa-unity-and-diversity-
independence.
3. The phrase “national cake” was popularly used in Nigeria to refer to the wealth, riches, or resources of
the nation as a cake owned by everybody but only accessible to a privileged few. The underlying
principle of governance or involvement in politics in Nigeria was not primarily motivated by patriotism or
service; rather it was motivated by greed, plundering, and a “get rich quick” mindset. Since many others
have plundered the nation’s resources, the average Nigerian citizen hopes for his/her opportunity to do
so too (www.waywordradio.org/national_cake_1/).

4. An office holder in Nigeria (anyone who has access to the nation’s resources) is under obligation to share
his good fortune with people through contracts, appointments, and jobs (www.bbc.com/news/world-
africa-30447166).
5. The perceived cultural tendency, in parts of Africa to have a more relaxed attitude about time.
6. Power distance is defined as “the extent to which the less powerful members of institutions and
organizations within a country expect and accept that power is distributed unequally.” Individualism is
the degree of interdependence a society maintains among its members. Masculinity is defined in terms
of what motivates people, wanting to be the best (masculine) or liking what you do (feminine).
Uncertainty avoidance describes the “extent to which the members of a culture feel threatened by
ambiguous or unknown situations and have created beliefs and institutions that try to avoid these.”

VOL. 13 NO. 1 2017 j THE CASE JOURNAL j PAGE 125

 Long-term orientation describes how society maintains some links with its own past while dealing with
the challenges of the present and future, and societies prioritize these two existential goals differently.
Indulgence is defined as the extent to which people try to control their desires and impulses, based on
the way they were raised.
7. Power is concerned with who or which groups of people hold power in the organization. It can exist
formally or informally in the organization (Balogun and Hailey, 2008).

8. Time has to do with how long an organization has to achieve change as well as how much time the
change agent has to deliver change (Balogun and Hailey, 2008).

9. Scope has to do with how much change or what degree of change is needed in terms of depth or
physical spread (Balogun and Hailey, 2008).

10. Preservation deals with what to continue/maintain and what to discontinue in an organization. Certain
practices or specific assets need to be preserved either because they constitute invaluable resources,
or because they contribute toward a valued stability of culture or identity within an organization
(Balogun and Hailey, 2008).

11. Diversity deals with how homogeneous or heterogeneous staff groups within an organization are in
terms of values, norms, and attitudes (Balogun and Hailey, 2008).

12. Capability is an assessment of managerial and non-managerial staff in terms of their skills, behaviors,
and attitudes necessary to achieve change (Balogun and Hailey, 2008).

13. Capacity considers the availability of resources like cash, time, and people as well as commitment and
competency levels (Balogun and Hailey, 2008).

14. Readiness for change is assessed in terms of the awareness of the need for change among staff as well
as the amount of personal commitment they demonstrate toward changing their skills, attitudes and
behavior or work practices (Balogun and Hailey, 2008).

15. Change path or type (i.e. evolution, revolution, adaptation, or reconstruction) is dependent on the nature
of change needed as well as the end result of the change envisaged. Evolution is a transformational
change, which is incremental in nature, while revolution is a transformational change, which is of a
“big bang” nature. Adaptation involves realignment to organizational goals but is incremental in nature
while reconstruction is an alignment, which is of a “big bang” nature (Balogun and Hailey, 2008).

16. Change start-point refers to where the change is initiated and developed; the change start-point may be
top-down or bottom-up (Balogun and Hailey, 2008).

17. Change style refers to way the management style adopted to implement change (e.g. collaborative,
participative, directive, coercive, or through education and delegation) (Balogun and Hailey, 2008).

18. Change targets include what is to be targeted in order to achieve change, e.g. employees values,
behaviors, or their tangible outputs (Balogun and Hailey, 2008).

19. Change levers can be technical, political, cultural, or interpersonal levers (Balogun and Hailey, 2008).

20. Change roles refer to who (the individuals, groups, or entities) is responsible for change. Change roles
can be a change champion, external consultants, a change action team, or a functional part of the
organization such as HR (Balogun and Hailey, 2008).

References
Abudu, F. (1986), “Work attitudes of Africans, with special reference to Nigeria”, International Studies of
Management & Organization, Vol. 16 No. 2, pp. 17-36.

Arrey, O.B. (2014), “Attitude to work by Nigerian workers: a theoretical perspective”, Global Journal of
Management and Business Research, Vol. 13 No. 12, pp. 5-7.

Campbell, J. (2014), “Corruption and Sharing Nigeria’s Cake”, December, available at: http://blogs.cfr.org/
campbell/2014/12/19/corruption-and-sharing-nigerias-cake/ (accessed July 20, 2015).

Central Intelligence Agency (2015), “The World Fact Book: Nigeria”, available at: www.cia.gov/library/
publications/the-world-factbook/geos/ni.html (accessed July 17, 2015).

David, F.R., Kursh, S.R., Lant, T.K., Majeske, K.D., Olver, J.M. and Plant, R. (Eds), (2013), “Nigeria – business
culture”, Strategic Management: Concepts and Cases, Pearson Learning Solutions, Boston, MA, p. 263.

PAGE 126 j THE CASE JOURNAL j VOL. 13 NO. 1 2017

Global Times (2013), “Time for Africa to abandon tardy culture to avoid punctuality problems”, June, available
at: www.liberianews.net/index.php/sid/215167559 (accessed July 22, 2015).

Ogbonna, C. (2010), “Cultural issues about doing business in Nigeria: case study for thurmo”, available
at: www.theseus.fi/bitstream/handle/10024/16512/Chidiebere_Ogbonna.pdf?sequence=1 (accessed
July 30, 2015).

The Hofstede Center (2015), “What about Nigeria?” available at: http://geert-hofstede.com/nigeria.html
(accessed February 10, 2015).

Exhibit 1

Figure A1 Map showing location of Nigeria in Africa

NIGERIA

VOL. 13 NO. 1 2017 j THE CASE JOURNAL j PAGE 127

 Figure A2 Map of Nigeria showing the country’s 36 states

PAGE 128 j THE CASE JOURNAL j VOL. 13 NO. 1 2017

Figure A3 Nigeria’s cultural dimensions in comparison with the USA and China

100
Nigeria USA China
90

80

70

60

50

40

30

20

10

0
Power distance Individualism Masculinity Uncertainty Long-term Indulgence
avoidance orientation
Source: http://geert-hofstede.com/nigeria.htm

Exhibit 2

Figure A4 AfrobitLink Creed

Source: The AfrobitLink Way Training Brochure (1998)

VOL. 13 NO. 1 2017 j THE CASE JOURNAL j PAGE 129

 Exhibit 3

Table AI AfrobitLink revenue by year (in US dollars)

Year 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013
Revenue ($M) 0.800 0.954 1.340 6.761 7.215 8.154 9.525 9.142 9.030 8.487 8.217 7.592 7.055
Source: AfrobitLink Company Documents (2014)

Exhibit 4

Figure A5 AfrobitLink revenue trends

12
Revenue (Million )
10

0
2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013
Source: AfrobitLink Company Documents (2014)

PAGE 130 j THE CASE JOURNAL j VOL. 13 NO. 1 2017

Exhibit 5

Table AII AfrobitLink income statements, 2009-2013 (in US dollars)

2009 2010 2011 2012 2013

Revenue ($)
Sales revenue 9,030,000 8,487,000 8,217,000 7,592,000 7,055,000
Sales deductions 207,491 188,623 197,558 184,193 257,624
Net sales 8,822,509 8,298,377 8,019,442 7,407,807 6,797,376
Service revenue 44,462 46,472 36,584 59,351 50,487
Other operating income 190,200 −60,140 39,023 32,745 35,284
Total revenues 9,057,171 8,284,709 8,095,049 7,499,903 6,883,147

Cost of revenue ($)

Cost of materials 2,076,559 2,021,040 2,053,785 2,106,431 1,614,060
Personnel costs 2,325,582 2,009,339 1,537,556 1,436,363 1,200,334
Cost of services 1,403,949 529,467 1,774,343 1,877,789 1,987,095
Gross profit 3,251,081 3,724,863 2,729,365 2,079,320 2,081,658

Expenses ($)
Insurance 189,354 220,345 240,653 271,000 304,808
Depreciation 155,513 180,907 182,018 190,937 209,033
Licenses and fees 150,235 170,505 195,245 237,746 295,146
Legal and professional fees 220,000 270,000 350,000 400,000 377,235
Vehicle expenses 224,346 240,324 254,765 265,847 300,245
Rent 224,523 236,734 240,211 242,156 265,398
Other operating expenses 89,432 165,406 337,108 300,856 448,135
Total operating expenses 1,253,403 1,484,221 1,800,000 1,908,542 2,200,000
Net operating income 1,997,678 2,240,642 929,365 170,778 −118,342

Other income ($)

Interest income 141,204 125,748 101,945 86,035 91,022
Pre-tax profit 2,138,882 2,366,390 1,031,310 256,813 −27,320
Net income (loss) 1,497,217 1,656,473 721,917 179,769 −35,516
Source: AfrobitLink Company Documents (2014)

VOL. 13 NO. 1 2017 j THE CASE JOURNAL j PAGE 131

 Exhibit 6

Figure A6 AfrobitLink company structure in 1998

President

Henry Wilson

Senior Engineer Admin/HR/Sales

Lead
Todd Lewis Sue Wilson

Engineer Sales Officer Admin Personnel

O&M Sales Admin
Andy Fred Cara

Engineer Sales Officer Front Desk

O&M Officer
Sales
Matt Admin
Breonna
Lola

Engineer Sales Officer Driver

O&M Sales Admin
Riley Kim Kevin

Manager Sales Officer Driver

O&M Sales Admin
Delvin Anna Lewis

Source: AfrobitLink Company Documents (1998)

Corresponding author
Olugbenga Adeyinka can be contacted at: olade38@morgan.edu

PAGE 132 j THE CASE JOURNAL j VOL. 13 NO. 1 2017