Under the Invisible Hand? Market Influences on Community-Engaged Scholarship in Malawian Higher Education

Abstract

Market-based practices have turned African faculty members into entrepreneurs. This has resulted in faculty members selling their knowledge and skills through consultancies and research related projects in a bid to raise enough money for their universities and themselves. While university culture has shaped this conundrum, dwindling local government support and competitive international donor funding mechanism have compounded the challenges for community-engaged scholarship (CES). This paper explores faculty motivations and barriers of market-based approaches to community-engaged scholarship. It explores implications of the increasing pressure of the entrepreneurial university in shaping faculty motivations to conduct community-engaged scholarship in Africa using a case of Malawian faculty in public higher education.