Most of the study of African economies in the nineteenth century is limited to the analysis of European demand for raw materials and the opening up of African markets for European manufactured goods, with most analysts treating the Africans who participated in the transatlantic trade in this period as mere agents reacting to European impulses. Consequently, much research on African economies heretofore has not focused on African organizational management history and business strategy.

This new research redresses the balance. This work also identifies the "concept of strategy" used by the management of Kalabari Incorporated. The corporation's concept of strategy was not one great plan, made by a great mind, fitting resources and capabilities to opportunities, Rather, it was the flow of small, innumerable, incremental decisions made by all staff to leverage and stretch the organization's resources, to beat the competition, and to create sustainable competitive advantages.

The book considers how the concept of corporation and the "theory of the business" adopted by Kalabari Incorporated influenced its management style. The firm was driven by the purpose-process-people philosophy of management - not the strategy-structure-systems framework. The purpose-process-people discipline emerges as the central act that defined what the company did, the decisions its management made, and the shape of the organization.

Lastly, the book analyzes the nature and causes of the decline of Kalabari Incorporated - its failure ultimately attributable to its inability to develop and invest in managerial hierarchies and to separate ownership from management. Without the proper managerial hierarchies, the corporation lacked the relevant structure and strategic insight to permit innovation, and to effectively compete against better-managed British firms toward the end of the nineteenth century.