Professor and Executive Dean

Faculty of Commerce, Human Sciences and Education

Inaugural Lecture

Title FROM CONSUMER INSIGHT TO INCLUSIVE INNOVATION: BUILDING ENTREPRENEURIAL, DIGITAL AND SUSTAINABLE FUTURES FOR NAMIBIA AND AFRICA

PROFILE OF PROF EFIGENIA MADALENA MARIO SEMENTE

Professor Efigenia Madalena Mario Semente is Executive Dean of the Faculty of Commerce, Human Sciences and Education at the Namibia University of Science and Technology (NUST). An academic, researcher, entrepreneur and strategic management scholar, she brings more than 25 years of combined experience in academia and industry. Her leadership encompasses academic development, postgraduate education, research and entrepreneurship, connecting scholarly knowledge with organisational practice and Namibia’s development priorities.

Her qualifications span marketing, strategic management, entrepreneurship and higher education. They include a Doctor of Business Administration, MBA, MSc in Marketing, Postgraduate Diploma in Marketing, Postgraduate Certificate in Higher Education, bachelor’s degree in Marketing, and Certificate in Strategic Management and Innovation. Her doctoral research, completed at the University of Namibia in 2018, examined consumer decision-making styles among Generation Y consumers in Namibia. This work informed her subsequent scholarship on consumer behaviour, digitalisation and management in African contexts.

Professor Semente has produced more than 30 scholarly outputs, attracting over 100 citations. Her research has developed from consumer behaviour, culture and digital literacy into customer-centric service, entrepreneurship, innovation, sustainability and strategic management. She focuses on adapting established management theories to the realities of Namibia and emerging African markets, developing knowledge grounded in evidence and relevant to practice.

Her collaborative work includes the RATTER–SSTL framework for customer-centricity, integrating reliability, assurance, tangibles, training, empathy, responsiveness, service attainment, satisfaction, trust and loyalty. Other research addresses women’s entrepreneurship, consumer experience, public-sector performance and SME competitiveness. Recent studies examine technology adoption among older adults in Windhoek, e-procurement among Namibian SMEs, technological transformation in banking, public procurement and service delivery, and the capabilities that help firms translate innovation into performance.

In 2026, she co-edited Technical and Vocational Education as a Catalyst for Sustainable Entrepreneurship, published by IGI Global Scientific Publishing. The volume explores TVET’s contribution to entrepreneurship, innovation, workforce development and economic resilience. Her scholarly engagement includes the Africa Business Research Society and international collaborations on African entrepreneurial ecosystems, innovative marketing and SME performance in emerging markets.

At NUST, Professor Semente supports entrepreneurship education, TVET, university–industry engagement and the translation of research into practice. Her scholarship addresses economic diversification, employment creation, digital transformation, sustainability and effective public services, with relevance to the Sustainable Development Goals and African Union Agenda 2063.

Her inaugural lecture traces the progression from consumer insight to inclusive innovation, connecting customer-centric service with digital capability and entrepreneurial ecosystems. It emphasises context-sensitive management scholarship and sustainable entrepreneurial futures for Namibia and Africa. Her proposed research agenda extends this work through comparative, interdisciplinary and longitudinal inquiry into inclusive entrepreneurial growth, examining how evidence can strengthen enterprises, public services and institutional capability.