Profile

Prof. Mahamadou Biga-Diambeidou, an award-winning Professor in Entrepreneurship, is a Honorary Research Associate at the Smith School; Founding Leader of ‘Sustainable Innovative Entrepreneurship Worldwide/Africa (SIEWA) Initiative: A Real-world Laboratory to Accelerate Transition with Africa at Louvain Research Institute in Management and Organizations (LouRIM), Catholic University of Louvain (UCLouvain), Belgium, where he also earned his PhD. He is Professor (Guest) at Louvain School of Management where he teach International Strategic Management and Strategic Innovation Management using a living Lab based approach with specific focus on a Transdisciplinary Capstone Project for building a new generation of high performing innovative change makers and sustainable startup. Biga is also Affiliate Professor at the Abdou Moumouni University of Niamey and the Djibo Hamani University of Tahoua (Niger); Visiting Professor at the African University for Cooperative Development (Benin); Resource Person (Rector Office) and Lecturer at the Université Senghor (Egypt); Member of Advisory Group of the Innovation Center, Research Institute of Economics and Business Administration at the Kyungpook National University (South Korea); Co-Responsible, Thematic Group AIMS-RMA Recherche en Management et l’Afrique, Association Internationale de Management Stratégique, AIMS (France); Editorial Board Member of numerous international academic journals; and Associate Editor of Journal of African Business.

Previously, he has been an Associate Professor and Responsible of the Sustainable Entrepreneurship North-South/Africa Initiative of UNESCO Chair; Head of Chair in Early Growth Acceleration & Family Business Labs at ICN ARTEM Business School (France); and the Initiator and Co-Leader of ICN-CRECIS Early Growth Acceleration Initiative – a joint research project between ICN Business School (France) and UCLouvain (Belgium), dedicated to research on understanding entrepreneurial processes of growth and performance in the initial phase of business life, and the creation of usable knowledge in this area. Before that, he was a faculty member of the Champagne School of Management (France). Biga was also a visiting scholar at the Australian Center for Entrepreneurship Research (ACE), Queensland University of Technology (Australia); affiliated with the research Lab, CEREFIGE at the University of Lorraine (France) as well as REPONSE research lab at the University of Reims Champagne-Ardenne (France). 

Biga has targeted to set up collaborations between public/private sector, international organizations, and academic institutions, as he believe we need multistakeholder engagement to drive and inform Responsible Management Education, and driving forward theory and knowledge on sustainability and global impact. He is honored to be appointed/elected to several positions of trust on councils and committees which are focused on development of business policies, strategies and behavior towards sustainable entrepreneurship and innovation development such as for example: Member of Steering Group for ‘OECD EECOLE’; Collaborator and valuable contributor to UN PRME, UN Global Compact; Board Member of ‘Inno4sd.net - Eco-Innovation Society’; Expert-evaluator for the European Commission ‘Strategic Plan H2020’; Leader of Higher Education and Research sector for African and Malagasy Council for Higher Education (CAMES-RIDEPEC, with 19 French speaking African countries related); Board Member of CAMES Ad hoc Committee for the implementation of the Resolution No. SO-CM/CAMES/2021-012 – New Evaluation Guide for Faculty in CAMES zone within the framework of the CCI; Board Member of the CAMES Qualification Framework Project; a Deputy of the UNESCO Chair Art and Science for SDGs at the ‘BRIDGES’ Workshop; a Coordinator of French-speaking Africa countries, Pan African research consortium, Savings Group for Africa (SG4Africa), PEEP Policy Experimentation & Evaluation Platform; Member of the Board of Directors, Société Africaine de Management; Importantly, he is also the Founder and leader of AfRIC Conference Series, the flagship of the SIEWA Initiative an illustrative example of multistakeholder partnerships.

Biga research and educational mission are systematically aimed at generating leaders who will act as good corporate citizens and who will ensure good corporate citizenship becomes the norm for business leadership locally and globally. He deploys experiential learning in which students are exposed to experimentations to sustainability challenges in complex local and global contexts with a variety of stakeholder interests. In his own current leadership roles, he promote corporate citizenship by leading and stimulating intellectual curiosity and innovative operations in international multistakeholder initiatives and by advancing research by setting research agenda. His works have been published or are forthcoming in international journals including Small Business Economics, Academy of Management Learning and Education, International Journal of Technology Management, Journal of Organizational Change Management, Journal of African Business, Mi International Management, Industry and Higher Education, Journal of Small Business and Enterprise Development, Canadian Journal of Regional Sciences, International Journal of Service Technology and Management, Gestion 2000, Revue Francaise de Gouvernance d’Entreprise.