Q. The Executive Chairman of Zoomlion and Jospong Groups of Companies, Dr. Joseph Siaw Agyepong has built up one of the Africa’s largest sanitation management businesses, becoming Ghana’s wealthiest businessman. What accounts for his success? To reach the global scale that Zoomlion and Jospong Groups of Companies has achieved requires, at the highest level, a combination of classical, behavioral, and modern management approaches to managerial functions, culture, strategy, motivational concepts, change management practices and execution over a sustainable period of time. It took Dr. Agyepong a decade to build the company into a global enterprise. Excerpts follow as Ghanaian Students, Entrepreneurs and the society as a whole can benefit. Outside of Internet success stories such as Alibaba’s Jack Ma or Baidu’s Robin Li, Ghana has few if any widely internationally known business leaders. The Executive Chairman of Zoomlion and Jospong Groups of Companies, Dr. Joseph Siaw Agyepong is relatively unknown even though African magazines estimated last month that he had surpassed other tycoons on the continent to become the country’s richest man with a fortune worth $140 million. I exchanged this week with Ghanaian business executives at GIMPA, about what’s behind Dr. Agyepong’s business success. From the management perspective, he studied Classical perspective like Taylor, Gilbreth, Fayol and Weber; behavioral perspective like Mcgregor X and Y, and Hawthorne effect; in addition to modern approaches; which help him appreciate management functions very well.

From a cultural point of view, he has the right values and long-term vision to attract the right team for sustainable success. The company’s corporate culture has three key components: a comprehensive organizational structure that allows it to scale up globally; in-depth corporate cultural content; and very rich corporate cultural activities. Its corporate slogan is “International Sanitation, Century Enterprise.” Its core value emphasizes “society value” over “enterprise value” or personal value. In other words, Dr. Agyepong’s rooted the company in values, which are lacking in Western society and business. In so doing, he is trying to balance the needs of different stakeholders in his business. In terms of Change management Strategically, He transformed his business model from small to commercial development in other business investments, shopping malls and hotels, movie theaters and department stores, and from there to exporting Ghanaian culture and tourism globally, starting in 2010. This type of transformation requires deep strategic vision and considerable ambition as well as long-term strategic planning, of course in unfreezing the mindset of workers; moving with them and refreezing to ensure sustainable change. Geographically, he expanded from the small city market of Accra (25% market share) to other regions. After succeeding in Ghana, he is now expanding the business to other African countries and Europe.

Source: Forbes Magazine, 2013

Questions:
1.Based on the success of Dr. Jospong, to what extent do you believe that Ghanaian businesses needs to place emphasis on management research in building a competitive and successful business empire? Give 3 reasons for your answer. (4 marks)

2.Gaining and maintaining access to organizations as a Jospong group of companies is an important aspect of a case study research project. What obstacles may one encounter when trying to gain access to these organizations? Suggest ways to overcome them? (4 marks)

3.At what point can any organization like the Jospong group of companies stop conducting research? Give reasons for your answer (4 marks)

4.In commencing a research project which of the following skills is critical before you start any research project? Relating to the passage, Given reasons for your answer (4 marks)
i.Human Relational Skills
ii. Conceptual skills
iii. Technical Skills
iv. Managerial skills

5.With a success story from the Jospong group of companies, would you give the benefits of Applied research to businesses in Ghana?