Economic Considerations
Featured Evaluating Local Worker Satisfaction of Chinese Firms in Africa: Insights from China Harbour Engineering Company in Côte d’Ivoire View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Matthew Rochat
Chinese investment in Africa is often assessed from a macroeconomic perspective, emphasizing infrastructure growth, trade volumes, and geopolitical influence. However, a key puzzle remains: How do local workers experience and perceive Chinese firms, and why do narratives of Chinese engagement oscillate between developmental success and exploitative practices? This study addresses this gap by focusing on the China Harbour Engineering Company (CHEC) in Côte d’Ivoire, one of West Africa’s fastest-growing economies. Through a survey of CHEC’s local workforce, the research evaluates job satisfaction across dimensions such as workplace conditions, management practices, salary fairness, and opportunities for skills transfer. The findings reveal mixed perceptions, with workers acknowledging CHEC’s efficiency and employment opportunities but raising concerns about safety standards, limited advancement, and cultural integration. A comparative analysis with perceptions of French firms operating in the same context highlights how management styles and historical relationships influence worker satisfaction. By grounding the analysis in the lived experiences of African laborers, this study bridges the gap between macroeconomic narratives and micro-level realities. The insights provide policymakers, businesses, and civil society with a deeper understanding of how foreign investments can balance efficiency with equitable labor practices, fostering sustainable development in Africa.
Artificial Intelligence in Business Management: Ethical Considerations and Governance Strategies View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Razak Surrey
Artificial intelligence (AI) stands as one of the revolutionary concepts in the contemporary business management, which impacts decision making process, organizational performance and planning. However, liberal expansion of AI technologies has stirred crucial moral issues among them being; bias, privacy of data, fairness and transparency of action. These challenges prove why the right governance standards are reasonable to establish to protect against the negative results of questionable use of AI. By doing so, this study advances the understanding of AI, ethics, and governance for business management by identifying necessary ethical concerns and presenting workable governance solutions. The literature review, case studies, and expert interviews form the basis of the research to realize the current deficits in ethical AI practices and to assess the efficiency of the sociotechnical governance frameworks. All the findings stress on the need to incorporate the international policies in corporate governance especially as they relate to AI, involve stakeholders in policies and adopt the ethical principles of fairness in intelligence. This research contributes to the emerging literature in AI or management, providing practical suggestions for firms attempting to navigate this course. The implications of these findings are evident in affirming the significance of ethical AI governance in improving the operations of business and making them sustainable, competitive and trustworthy.
The Mirage of Liberation through Liberalisation: Interrogating Dalit Capitalism’s Claims for Dalit Liberation in India through the Lens of Racialised Capitalism
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Manasi Kulkarni
In India, Dalit capitalism has recently emerged as a theory that seeks to empower Dalits (marginalised castes) within the framework of the globalised market economy. It believes that the market economy has the potential to become an equalising force, eliminating the barriers that caste imposes. This paper interrogates Dalit Capitalism’s claims for Dalit liberation, arguing that it represents a fraught compromise at best and cannot affect a comprehensive liberation for the Dalit community. The market economy and globalisation have long been framed as the ultimate liberators that have the potential to democratise capital in societies and make them more equal; however, social and economic inequalities still continue to plague all market economies around the world. The Indian market economy interacts with the caste system to produce unique racialised hierarchies that have come to define the country’s social, economic, and political structures. This paper uses the framework of racial capitalism, extending its analysis to the caste system and how it interacts with capital in the market economy. This study draws on secondary qualitative and quantitative data to examine the lived experiences of Dalits within India’s market economy, critically analysing these sources to assess the validity and transformative potential of Dalit capitalism as a framework for Dalit liberation. It concludes that the system of racial capitalism produces unique barriers for the Dalit community even within the neo-liberal economy, and Dalit liberation cannot be effected through Dalit capitalism because of the market economy’s interest in exploiting marginalised communities for their labour.
AI + Global Philanthropy: Challenges in an Era of Technocratic Governance
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Nick Pozek
This paper examines the bidirectional relationship between artificial intelligence and global philanthropy within emerging technocratic governance systems. Major foundations now deploy AI internally to transform operations—optimizing resource allocation and measuring impact through algorithmic systems—while simultaneously shaping global AI governance by funding research centers, establishing ethics guidelines, and convening policy dialogues. This dual role creates distinctive tensions as philanthropies navigate their position in an emerging technocratic order. The research investigates this relationship across diverse contexts, revealing how varied cultural approaches produce different governance ecosystems: philanthropic organizations introduce AI-driven initiatives in the Global South while adapting to local conditions, while alternative models from China present competing visions of technocratic philanthropy. Through analysis of multiple case studies, the paper identifies how philanthropic institutions function as experimental spaces where technological implementation directly shapes governance approaches. This analysis contributes to understanding how AI transforms philanthropic institutions while these organizations simultaneously influence the governance regimes emerging around these technologies. The findings illuminate the growing entanglement of technology, expertise, and philanthropy in global systems, revealing how philanthropic organizations both reinforce and reconfigure technocratic structures that prioritize data-driven expertise over traditional governance models in an increasingly AI-mediated world.
