Moore School of Business - Rolfe moves to International Business faculty

Dr. Robert J. Rolfe After eight years of administrative duties – three as chairman of accounting and five as executive director of the IMBA program, Dr. Robert Rolfe is ready to make the leap – back to teaching. But instead of accounting, as before, Rolfe is developing two new courses on emerging economies in Africa.

The first course, “Doing Business in Africa,” will be offered this fall. A second course, to be offered to undergraduates in spring 2006, will include a two-week trip to Kenya for a first-hand encounter with businesses and business practices there.

Though born and raised in the United States, Rolfe’s interest in Africa is only natural: his paternal ancestors immigrated from England and Ireland to South Africa in the early 1800s, and eventually settled in Zimbabwe and Zambia. (His father came to the United States for college and stayed.) Rolfe has traveled extensively across Africa and is learning to speak Swahili.

Rolfe believes these new courses on Africa will complement existing studies in the international business program, and the implications for doing business in Africa are huge. “A best-selling business book last year was The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid: Eradicating Poverty Through Profits (by University of Michigan professor C. K. Prahalad) about how multinational markets for products in the third world can help alleviate poverty,” Rolfe said. One obvious area of interest for the United States is increased oil imports from African countries.

Rolfe has also managed to combine his interest in Africa with his accounting expertise: one of his research interests is how developing countries might use tax incentives to make themselves more attractive for investment.

Faculty News

Rolfe to Teach About Emerging African Economies