Keywords: Strategies, resource, waste management, Africa Context: Waste management is still a relatively new sector in Africa and its complexity has not yet been fully captured by extant research. In a context of... [ view full abstract ]
Keywords: Strategies, resource, waste management, Africa
Context:
Waste management is still a relatively new sector in Africa and its complexity has not yet been fully captured by extant research. In a context of globalization, the African cities are facing a demographic explosion and therefore an increase of formerly unknown types of waste (Traoré, 2011). Since the 1990s, to deal with waste collection, a number of informal and formal, for-profit and not-for-profit initiatives more or less anchored in the social and solidarity economy (SSE) have emerged that try to develop while responding to the constraints of public regulation.
Research question(s):
The aim of this paper is to understand and explain the resource-securing strategies adopted by different types of waste collection organizations to deal with the uncertainty and complexity of their environment. In this changing environment, where informal and formal intertwine, how do different types of organizations manage their access to crucial resources in order to survive and develop? How do informal and formal, for-profit and not-for-profit organizations position themselves against each other? How can the different strategies be explained and connected with the different organizational forms and activities in a comparative perspective?
Theoretical grounding:
To answer these research questions, the Resource Dependence Theory framework - RDT (Pfeffer et Salançik, 1978) seems particularly useful. It has been used to understand how organizations control their resources needed to survive and/or grow in uncertain environments. The theory shows that organizations are embedded in interdependent networks of other organizations, distributing power and resources. Nevertheless, organizations can manage strategies to reduce the constraints of their environment and keep or gain control of their resources (eg. mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, recruitment of Directors, political action, etc.). Despite the massive references to this theory, Pfeffer (2003) notes that empirical studies using it are still scarce, especially in cultural contexts outside Europe and the US. Through the case of waste collection organizations in Ouagadougou, this study aims not only to extend the scope of empirical studies using RDT in novel contexts, but also to enrich the theory by exploring a case of very high uncertainty and by contrasting the strategies of for-profit and not-for-profit organizations.
Methodology:
This article is based on a multiple case study (qualitative approach) conducted since 2013 with eight waste collection organizations (see Table 1). Three of them are associations, four others are commercial companies, all created in the 1990s. Since 2002, most of them are at the top of Economic Interest Groups (EIG) comprising between 2 and 10 waste collection organizations. They are all considered as ‘formal’ because selected in the public-private partnership (PPP) with the City council. The last one is a large association considered as ‘informal’ because collecting wastes since 2007 thus out of the PPP. Two of the enterprises were previously associations and one enterprise was a cooperative. The diversity of organizational forms, size, position and resources guided the selection of the case studies. The data collection consisted of three steps. Firstly, an exploratory study was conducted in 2014 to interview different actors of the waste management sector in Ouagadougou (city council, waste collection organizations, recycling organizations and individuals, etc.). Secondly, at the beginning of 2015, in-depth interviews were made with presidents/directors of 8 organizations but also with different members of the staff (secretary/accountant, waste pickers and other employees). Thirdly, daily work observation and participation in formal and informal meetings yielded additional data. After a full transcription of the interviews and observation notes, the data were analyzed using a coding based on the RDT theoretical framework, i.e. the identification of the crucial resources and the strategies to secure access to these resources. The different resources and strategies were then mapped against the main differences between the organizations in terms of organizational forms.
Through examining waste collection organizations in an unstable African context, the study is expected to yield a set of theoretical propositions regarding how different types of organizations deal with an uncertain and complex environment. By doing this, we also aim to enrich organizational theories as well as the SSE literature.
